International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy Excerpts from paper presented by Mohammad Muntasim Tanvir, a staff of ASPBAE (Asia South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education) at Workshop on ‘Building a Shared Understanding of Quality Adult Education in the Asia Pacific’ from 5-7 November, 2009 in Jakarta The Purpose The benchmarks are designed to facilitate a more rigorous policy debate about literacy, especially with governments, funding agencies and practitioners