More than 760 000 students took the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science, mathematics and reading test in 2025 across 91 countries and economies, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds across the world.

The highest performers in PISA 2025 across these three domains were the Chinese jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Singapore. Additionally, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Macao (China), Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom were among the top 10 performing education systems. The overall performance of OECD countries declined, with the lowest average levels of performance ever observed in science, reading and mathematics. However, there have been some improvements; for example, among OECD countries, Costa Rica, the Slovak Republic, Türkiye and the United Kingdom have seen increases in science scores since 2022. Overall reading scores saw particularly steep declines in the past three years, including in skills that matter most in the AI age: evaluating information, making connections across multiple sources and thinking critically about what we read. The instances of “hasty reading” – in which students read quickly but inaccurately – nearly doubled to 9% between 2018 and 2025.

Links:
PISA 2025 Results (Volume I)

Bijna 40 procent 15-jarigen kan niet goed lezen, laaggeletterdheid dreigt