Education systems in XIV

[Cleretic]

It’s stated in the Eorzea Encyclopedia that around 50% of Eorzeans are literate, so the the Medieval comparison doesn’t hold completely. It being so high should suggest that schooling of some sort is common, even if it’s just s9me instruction on numbers and letters. In the 1450s, Germany and Britain had literacy rates between 7% to 16% and it wasn’t until the 18th century that it reached as high as Eorzeas so I think we need to give the continent more credit. They have a unified currency and language, established overland and oversea trade routes that stretch from continent to continent, and a relatively advanced understanding of astronomy and physics. The Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution is right around the corner.

I always assumed FFXIV's general societal level was somewhere between the Renaissance and Industrial Revolution (when exactly kinda depends on where you're looking). A quick google says that literacy rates in that time were around 50%-ish, which checks out, especially when you account for the fact FFXIV's world is much less sexist than that era was in real life so you can presume the lower rates of literacy among women wouldn't carry over.