I note that the workers paradise of Cuba is ranked right up there with the Anzac nations and Finland. While Japan is ranked far below the US. This makes me doubt the rankings listed by the UN.
To be fair, Cuba does have an amazing literacy rate - that's not some sort of fantasy. Regardless of how crazy most of us probably find their leader to be, and what sort of mess their country might be in economically, they do work very very hard on educating their citizens (at least in the basics) and it's expected that children learning to read in school will go home and teach any elder family members who do not possess that knowledge.
(I am not suggesting the UN is any sort of fair marker of literacy rates, btw.)
