In 2025, more than 760 000 students, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds across 91 countries and economies, participated in the PISA assessment. This cycle focused on science, alongside reading, mathematics and an innovative assessment of learning in the digital world. An optional assessment of English as a foreign language was also offered.
The results reveal an uneven picture. Following the unprecedented drop in performance recorded in PISA 2022, learning outcomes have largely stagnated or continued to decline in many countries.
Science, the main focus of PISA 2025, has been comparatively resilient over the past decade. Average science scores fell modestly across OECD countries between 2015 and 2025, while remaining broadly stable among non‑OECD participants over the same period.1
The picture is more challenging in mathematics. Across OECD countries, average scores fell by 22 points between 2015 and 2025 - equivalent to just over one year of learning. Among non-OECD participants, mathematics performance also declined.2
Reading recorded the steepest decline, with scores falling by 28 points across OECD countries and by 16 points among non-OECD participants between 2015 and 2025.3 This trend is particularly concerning because reading skills underpin learning across the curriculum and are essential for finding, evaluating, interpreting and reflecting on information in an increasingly digital world.
Across the OECD, 20% of 15-year-old students are now estimated to be low performers across all three subjects – up from 16% in 2022. These students lack the foundational skills needed to succeed in further education, employment and everyday life.
Socio-economic disparities narrowed across OECD countries between 2022 and 2025, driven by declining performance among advantaged students rather than gains among disadvantaged students.
These developments are part of a longer-term trend. The weakening of performance predates the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, pointing to deeper and more persistent challenges within education systems. In reading, increased digitalisation, longer screen time and falling rates of reading for enjoyment have coincided with weaker literacy outcomes. Countries with the largest declines in reading also tended to record the largest drops in mathematics and science.
Yet, these trends are not inevitable. Some countries are bucking the trend. Within the OECD, science scores rose in Costa Rica, the Slovak Republic, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. Among non-OECD members, scores also went up in Cambodia, El Salvador, Georgia, Jordan, Mongolia, Montenegro, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Uzbekistan.
Most participating Chinese jurisdictions, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom were among the top-performing education systems across science, mathematics and reading, ranking within the top ten in all three domains.
Several countries also demonstrated that higher performance and more inclusive outcomes can go hand in hand. Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Montenegro, Qatar and the Slovak Republic reduced their share of low-performing students, while increasing their share of top-performers.
Digital and AI tools are increasingly embedded in students’ learning, but their relationship with performance depends on how they are used. Across OECD countries, moderate use of digital devices for learning is associated with stronger science performance, while excessive use and digital distraction are associated with weaker outcomes. More than one in four students report that their classmates are distracted by digital devices in most or every science lesson.
Policymakers have several levers to make education systems more effective and efficient. The starting point is focus: set high, consistent expectations for every student in reading, mathematics and science. Education systems need to favour depth over breadth – better to teach a smaller set of core topics well enough for genuine mastery than to rush through a long list only superficially. That focus only pays off, though, if the rest of the system supports it: curriculum, teaching and assessment need to reinforce each other rather than pull in different directions, and classrooms need to be kept free of avoidable digital distractions, for instance by limiting non-instructional phone and device use during lessons.
Teachers are central to making education systems perform well. They need to be equipped with strong teaching skills – not just subject knowledge, but the practical skills to explain clearly, manage a classroom and keep students engaged and motivated. Resources also need to be matched to need, especially for disadvantaged students and schools. Finally, as artificial intelligence becomes part of the classroom, it should be used in a targeted way for feedback and personalised practice. It should add to students' effortful learning rather than replace it, since real understanding comes from doing the thinking, not from having a tool do it instead.
Policymakers can now draw on this unique evidence to learn from peers, prioritise their efforts, and build effective education systems that equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Mathias Cormann,
OECD Secretary-General