Relevance. Attempts to understand what literacy is, how it is used and what benefits it brings to different categories of people have been widespread since the middle of the 20th century. Since the early 1990s, research on the assessment of functional literacy has begun to prevail in this area in the scientific discourse. The article examines research conducted on the labor market, indicating that functional literacy is an important component and partly a guarantee of employment, but in addition, from the point of view of employers, there are many other important skills that can also be put into the definition of "functional literacy" in its broader sense. Despite Kazakhstan's interest in assessing the situation with functional literacy of children and adults, which is confirmed by the country's active participation in international comparative studies, there are currently no tools for assessing functional literacy at the level of higher education. Criticism of the quality of higher education in the country also increases the relevance of this study, since it offers universities a theoretical framework for assessing the development of students' functional literacy as a mechanism for tracking students' progress in this area and taking appropriate measures. When developing a theoretical framework for assessing the functional literacy of university graduates in Kazakhstan, it is important to understand the theoretical, conceptual and historical origins of research on the measurement of functional literacy.

     The purpose of the study is to study historical, methodological literature, as well as technical documentation to determine the general concept of the theoretical framework of the tool for assessing the functional literacy of university graduates in Kazakhstan.

     The research methodology uses contextual, conceptual methods of intellectual text analysis and methods of measuring cognitive skills.

     To achieve results and to develop a tool, it is extremely important to narrow down the broad concept of "literacy", including reading and counting. For example, the definition proposed by PIAAC narrows the concept of literacy to "understanding, evaluating, using and interacting" with text. Researchers from Germany and France do the same, trying to make the concept of "literacy" measurable.

     The scientific novelty of the study is an attempt to develop a theoretical framework for assessing the functional literacy of university graduates in Kazakhstan.

     The practical significance is determined by the fact that in the context of a new approach to the assessment of functional literacy, the study will determine the main thematic areas in the development of functional literacy in higher education.

     Based on the results, it can be concluded that this article is aimed at using the provisions obtained in the course of this study in order to develop a theoretical framework for assessing the functional literacy of university graduates in Kazakhstan.

            The recommendations are the conclusions of the researchers that the important and fundamental differences of the proposed framework is the inclusion of the ICT component in the tasks related to measuring reading and numeracy skills.