PISA 2025 Results Reveal Global Decline in Student Proficiency
14 sources across 9 countries
Who reported this
- elDiarioAR
- Infobae
- La Nacion
- G1
- Folha de S.Paulo
- Le Monde
- France 24
- Der Spiegel
- Frankfurter Allgemeine
- La Tercera
- Haaretz
- El Pais
- Neue Zuercher Zeitung
- Bangkok Post
What the colours mean
- Left
- Centre-left
- Centre
- Centre-right
- Right
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The 2025 PISA results released by the OECD show a general decline in student performance across 91 countries and economies, with the average scores for OECD members reaching their lowest levels in the history of the study. The decline is most pronounced in reading and mathematics, with the OECD average dropping 14 points in reading and 9 points in mathematics since 2022. Experts and reports attribute this downward trend to the long term effects of pandemic school closures, the rise of screen time, and the impact of social networks on student attention. In Asia, China, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea continue to lead globally, although some of these nations also show a decline in reading proficiency.
Regional results vary significantly. In Latin America, Chile and Uruguay remain leaders despite experiencing their own declines. Argentina saw a drop in all three domains, recording its worst historical result in mathematics. Brazil remained statistically stable in reading and mathematics over the last decade but continues to score well below the OECD average. In Europe, Germany and Switzerland both reported declines, with Germany seeing some of its worst results to date. France also experienced a decline, sparking national debates over intellectual decline. Meanwhile, El Salvador reported that a specific pilot program using artificial intelligence and technology led 171 schools to achieve results comparable to Germany and Sweden, though these figures do not represent the national average.
Interpretations of the data differ based on political perspectives. Center right sources emphasize the failure of educational systems to maintain fundamental learning, the negative impact of screens, and the need for policies that transcend government changes. Center left sources highlight the role of socioeconomic inequality, the lack of teacher training, and the failure of previous administrations. Some center left perspectives also question the validity of PISA, arguing that its strictly quantitative approach ignores other forms of knowledge and fails to account for the inclusion of more vulnerable students in the testing pool.
How each side framed it
- Left
- Focused on the steep decline in specific national contexts like Israel.
- Centre-left
- Framed the results as a consequence of systemic inequality, lack of teacher support, and the limitations of quantitative testing.
- Centre
- Framed the results as a complex data set requiring careful reading of demographic shifts and the long term impact of the pandemic.
- Centre-right
- Framed the results as a failure of educational quality and a warning about the disruptive influence of technology and unions.
Sources
- Centre Bangkok Post: Thai students below OECD PISA average
- Centre-left Der Spiegel: Education: 25 years of Pisa shock, how Germany stands today
- Centre-left El Pais: Spanish students are the ones who use AI to study the most in the developed world (and it does not improve their performance)
- Centre-left El Pais: Why Spain has had the greatest educational drop in the 25 years of the PISA report
- Centre-left El Pais: The debate: Is the PISA Report that important?
- Centre-left El Pais: Why Madrid, Castilla y León and Asturias are the best in the PISA Report
- Centre Folha de S.Paulo: Pisa 2025: The grade at 15 begins much earlier
- Centre Folha de S.Paulo: Education in a bad spot
- Centre France 24: Jean-Michel Blanquer: "One must not be fatalistic" regarding France's Pisa ranking
- Centre-right Frankfurter Allgemeine: F.A.Z. Podcast for Germany: Pisa Shock: Worst Chinese in Math Ahead of Best Germans
- Centre-left G1: Pisa: performance of Brazilian students remains below the average of more developed countries
- Left Haaretz: Israeli students' PISA scores plummet to unprecedented low, new OECD report says
- Centre-right Infobae: PISA 2025: reasons for a fall that again triggers alarms in Latin America
- Centre-right Infobae: Pilot program with AI and technology brings 171 Salvadoran schools to levels of developed countries in PISA, government says
- Centre-right La Nacion: What the school stopped promising: social mobility
- Centre-right La Tercera: Why did Chile do poorly on the PISA test? “Pandemic generation” and excessive use of screens emerge as factors
- Centre-left Le Monde: PISA 2025: the narrative of "French declinism" back in the presidential race
- Centre-right Neue Zuercher Zeitung: DATA ANALYSIS: Swiss students are among the best in Europe. But one thing connects them with the Germans: They are getting worse
- Centre-left elDiarioAR: Following the poor results of the PISA tests, the Government affirms it will maintain the adjustment in education
- Centre-left elDiarioAR: Adriana Puiggrós, on PISA tests: “Argentine education had improved much from 2000 onwards”
100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.