OECD PISA assessment finds declines in reading and mathematics scores
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The Facts
- OECD average reading scores fell by 28 points between 2015 and 2025.
- OECD average mathematics scores fell by 22 points between 2015 and 2025.
- One in five students performed at low levels in reading, mathematics and science in 2025.
- The low-performing share rose from 16% in 2022 to 20% in 2025.
- PISA assesses the performance of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics and science.
- The OECD has 38 member countries and compares economic and social policies.
Context
What is PISA?
PISA is the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment, which evaluates 15-year-olds' performance in reading, mathematics and science across participating education systems. TimesNow La Silla Rota
Why do the results matter?
The assessment found that a larger share of students performed at low levels across all three subjects, rising from 16% in 2022 to one in five in 2025. Indian Express El Financiero
Which subjects saw the largest declines?
Across OECD countries, average reading scores fell by 28 points and mathematics scores by 22 points between 2015 and 2025. Indian Express TimesNow El Financiero
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Both frame the decade-long test-score decline as an institutional failure, not a reflection on the children themselves, demanding an answer from schools.
- Where Left and Right split
- Whether the real story is the widening gap at the bottom, where low performers jumped from 16% to 20%, or the across-the-board erosion of standards for all students.
- Why they won’t converge
- The divide is over values — whether an education system's legitimacy rests on protecting its most vulnerable students or on holding uniform standards accountable to all — and no shared PISA number resolves which yardstick governs.
- Watch for
- Whether Malaysia puts in place the three policy instruments Insap says are needed now to have any chance of meeting the government's own 2030 mathematics target.The Star
How left and right read it
A public school system is judged by the children it is failing, not by its averages. That is why the jump in low performers from 16% of 15-year-olds in 2022 to one in five in 2025 matters more than the 28-point slide in reading or the 22-point slide in math since 2015: the losses are concentrating at the bottom. This is a structural failure. Fund the schools and target the support to the students furthest behind.
A decade of ground lost across the world's wealthiest countries is a verdict on the institutions, not on the children sitting in their classrooms. Reading down 28 points and math down 22 since 2015 — measured across 38 countries that compare themselves precisely to catch failures like this — means the core academic mission itself is slipping, so the burden of proof now rests with the schools. They owe the explanation. What matters is standards held, results measured, and parents free to leave.
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