PISA: Global student performance falls as reading crisis deepens

Student performance in reading and mathematics has continued to deteriorate across much of the developed world, with the latest global PISA assessment showing teenagers struggling with basic skills that are central to everyday life.

The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), released on Tuesday by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), tested around 760,000 15-year-olds in 91 countries and economies. The assessment measures whether students can apply what they have learned to real-life situations rather than simply recall school material.

The results point to a broad and persistent decline. Across OECD countries, reading scores fell by 28 points between 2015 and 2025, equivalent to around a year and a half of learning. Mathematics scores declined by 22 points, or slightly more than a year of learning.

The deterioration is not limited to the OECD, although it is less pronounced elsewhere. Among participating countries and economies outside the OECD, reading scores fell by 16 points and mathematics by eight points over the same period.

Reading is the most concerning area. The OECD average fell to 466 points in 2025, down from a high of 501 in 2012. Around 20 points on the PISA scale are broadly equivalent to a year of learning, meaning that many 15-year-olds are now performing at a level previously expected of students roughly a year younger.

The decline has also left a growing share of students without basic proficiency. Around 29% of 15-year-olds across OECD countries are now considered low performers in all three subjects – reading, mathematics and science.

These are not simply weaknesses in academic knowledge. Students at the lowest levels may struggle to locate information in a simple text, interpret basic data or understand the relationship between units and prices – skills needed for ordinary activities such as shopping.

EU countries present a picture of erosion

Among EU countries in PISA 2025, Estonia stands out as the strongest performer, placing near the global top with science, reading and mathematics scores of 527, 499 and 508.

Finland, long a European benchmark, now sits in the middle of the pack (science 504, reading 474, mathematics 469) after multi-year declines. Several other member states recorded sharper drops: Denmark fell 29 points in reading and 19 in mathematics, France dropped 18 points in reading and 16 in mathematics, Sweden lost 21 points in reading and 18 in mathematics, and Bulgaria posted scores of 421 in science, 387 in reading and 405 in mathematics – well below the OECD average – while slipping 7–10 ranking places and losing 12–18 points in reading and mathematics.

Germany, the Netherlands and Spain also posted double-digit score losses across subjects, pushing many of them below or only marginally above the OECD average of roughly 460–482. A few countries, such as Poland and Italy, limited the damage or even gained a ranking place or two despite lower raw scores, but the overall picture for much of the EU is one of erosion rather than recovery.

A decline that predates COVID-19

The pandemic is an obvious potential explanation for falling educational performance, but the PISA data suggest that it is not the whole story.

The OECD says there was already a downward trend in many countries before COVID-19. It also found no direct relationship between the length of school closures during the pandemic and reading performance.

The longer-term decline instead points to deeper structural challenges within education systems.

Among them is the changing relationship between young people and technology. OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said that more screen time and less reading for pleasure had gone together with weaker reading results.

The 2025 assessment found that students in OECD countries spent an average of 3.4 hours per weekday using digital devices for leisure, in addition to around three hours for learning in the classroom and at home.

The OECD stopped short of endorsing smartphone bans in schools. However, digital distraction was associated with lower science scores in 59 of 82 education systems examined, while more than one in four students said devices distracted classmates during science lessons.

Cormann said digital technology could support learning, but warned that results began to decline when usage exceeded five hours a day.

Artificial intelligence presents another challenge. Nearly half of students reported regularly using AI chatbots for learning. Those who used them for drafting essays, summarising texts or researching topics generally scored around 20 points lower in science – roughly equivalent to a year of learning.

The OECD said technology and AI could strengthen learning and prepare young people for the future, but only when used purposefully rather than as substitutes for attention, effort and understanding.

Unequal schools, unequal outcomes

The decline is also closely linked to social background.

Across OECD countries, students from more advantaged backgrounds scored on average 85 points higher in science than those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Although this gap narrowed between 2022 and 2025, the OECD said this was mainly because performance among better-off students deteriorated rather than because disadvantaged students improved.

Differences between schools are also substantial in some education systems. In countries including Germany, variations between schools account for at least half of the overall variation in student performance.

By contrast, countries including Finland, Iceland and Cambodia show much smaller differences between schools. The OECD warns that where schools become divided according to academic achievement and social background, inequality can be amplified, creating pockets of excellence while leaving weaker outcomes elsewhere.

Some systems buck the trend

The global decline is not universal.

Between 2015 and 2025, science performance improved in education systems including Lithuania, Slovakia, Turkey, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Macao (China), Montenegro, Qatar, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.

#OECDPISA results are out today!
The participating Chinese jurisdictions, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Estonia and the United Kingdom are among the top-performing systems across science, reading and mathematics.
🔗 https://t.co/OtcLqsN2yi pic.twitter.com/G3KJocsfDP
— OECD Education (@OECDEduSkills) September 8, 2026

Turkey, Slovakia, Montenegro, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also increased the share of high-performing science students while reducing the proportion of low performers.

East Asian education systems remain the strongest overall performers. Participating Chinese jurisdictions, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom were among the top-performing systems across science, mathematics and reading.

There were also notable gains in reading outside the OECD. Qatar, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Zambia all recorded improvements between 2015 and 2025, despite remaining below the OECD average.

Science, the main focus of the 2025 assessment, offers a somewhat different picture. While its long-term performance has declined – from an OECD high of 506 points in 2009 to 486 in 2025, the average remained broadly stable between 2022 and 2025.

For policymakers, the challenge is therefore broader than recovering the learning lost in recent years. The OECD says education systems must adapt to social, technological and economic changes while strengthening basic skills, supporting teachers and providing targeted help to students and schools that need it most. Reversing the trend will require more than a response to the pandemic or a debate over smartphones. It points to a deeper question about how schools can preserve sustained attention, reading and understanding in an increasingly digital world.

Sources: Reuters, DW, Segabg.com

Caption: Students from the first year of high school attend their first class after an opening ceremony held at the Jerusalem Lion Square, at the Lauder-Reut Educational Complex in Bucharest, Romania, 7 September 2026. Around 2.9 million children and students will begin classes for the 2026-2027 school year in Romania on 7 September. The Lauder-Reut Educational Complex was established in 1997 by the international Ronald S. Lauder Foundation and now hosts over 400 students in kindergarten, lower and middle school. EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT