The OECD has published the latest results from its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), offering a new picture of how 15-year-olds are performing in science, reading and mathematics. The findings point to persistent challenges: across OECD countries, average performance has fallen to its lowest level recorded by PISA in all three subjects. Reading has seen the steepest long-term decline, while mathematics scores have also fallen substantially.
Across Europe, the results reveal considerable differences between education systems, but also a wider challenge around basic skills. Estonia remains one of the world's highest-performing education systems and, together with Ireland, stands out for combining strong performance with comparatively equitable outcomes. At the same time, reading performance has continued to fall in a number of EU countries, including Germany, France, Sweden and Slovenia. There are also signs that declines can be reversed: the Slovak Republic, for example, recorded an improvement in science performance since 2022.
More than 760,000 students from 91 countries and economies participated in PISA 2025. The results also examine issues including digitalisation and AI, student engagement and inequalities in educational outcomes.
Explore the full results, key findings and country-level data in the OECD’s PISA 2025 Results (Volume I). Further PISA 2025 results will follow in 2027, including Volume II, which will present findings from PISA’s first international assessment of English as a foreign language.