After a rapid decline until 2012, mean reading, mathematics and science performance in Sweden recovered fully or almost fully between 2012 and 2018, returning to a level similar to that observed in the early PISA assessments. In mathematics, for example, mean performance in 2018 lay more than 20 points above the PISA 2012 mean score. Between 2012 and 2018, the proportion of low-achieving students (scoring below Level 2) shrank by 8 percentage points and, at the same time, the proportion of top-performing students (scoring at Level 5 or 6) grew by about 5 percentage points. In reading and science, however, performance gaps widened over the long term. While no overall change could be determined amongst the highest-achieving students, performance amongst the lowest-achieving students tended to decline, particularly in reading.
Sweden’s improvement in mean performance since PISA 2012 was observed over a period of rapid increase in the proportion of immigrant students, who tended to score below non-immigrant students. It could be estimated that, if the student population in 2009 had had the same demographic profile as the population in 2018, the average score in reading would have been nine points lower than what was observed that year (Tables I.B1.10 and I.B1.40) – and the recent trends would have been even more positive. The widening gap in reading performance between the highest- and lowest-achieving students also seemed to be at least partly related to growing shares of immigrant students (Tables I.B1.10 and I.B1.40).
The massive inflow of immigrants in the most recent period, however, also led to an increase in student exclusion rates. In 2018, about 11 % of 15-year-old students were excluded from the PISA test – the highest rate amongst all participating countries/economies (Table I.A2.1). While limited information is available about excluded students, this increase is most likely the consequence of the large (and temporary) increase, between 2015 and 2018, of recently arrived immigrants in the school system.