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Student performance across OECD countries has continued to decline, reaching the lowest average ever recorded by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in mathematics and reading. Across the OECD, one in five 15-year-old students is now a low performer in science, mathematics and reading, up from 16% in 2022.
PISA 2025 was the largest assessment to date, involving 760 000 students across 91 countries and economies. This year’s edition focused on science, where average performance was stable between 2022 and 2025 across OECD countries, after having trended downward between 2009 and 2022.
Average reading scores fell by 28 points across OECD countries between 2015 and 2025, equivalent to about one and a half years of learning. Mathematics scores fell by 22 points, equivalent to just over one year of learning. Among non-OECD PISA participants, reading scores fell by 16 points and mathematics scores by eight points over the same period.
Socio-economic background remains a powerful predictor of performance. Across OECD countries, advantaged students scored 85 points higher in science than disadvantaged students. The gap narrowed between 2022 and 2025, but largely because advantaged students performed less well rather than improvements among disadvantaged students.
“PISA 2025 shows that reversing declines in student performance is urgent. The most successful education systems focus on fewer areas in greater depth, invest in teachers, engage parents and provide targeted support for the students and schools that need it the most,” said OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann. “Technology and AI can strengthen learning and help prepare young people for the future, but only when used purposefully and not as a substitute for attention, effort and understanding.”
Between 2015 and 2025, some education systems improved performance in contrast to broader trends. Science performance rose in Lithuania, the Slovak Republic, Türkiye, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Macao (China), Montenegro, Qatar, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay.
Türkiye, the Slovak Republic, Montenegro, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates increased their share of top performers while reducing their share of low performers in science.
Most participating Chinese jurisdictions, together with Estonia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom, ranked among the ten highest-performing education systems in science, mathematics and reading.
PISA 2025 also shows that when artificial intelligence and digital tools are used, they should be used with care, for clearly defined purposes, and in moderation. Students tended to perform less well when use became excessive or when devices were used for leisure at school.
Digital distraction also affects the wider classroom. More than one in four students said that classmates were distracted by digital devices in most or every science lesson. Students surrounded by distracted classmates performed less well, were less engaged in learning and felt less connected to their school.
Students who say they did not use AI to draft text for writing assignments outperformed those who say they did. Among frequent users, however, students who used AI to help them learn and were taught how to assess the quality of AI-generated information tended to perform better than those who received no such guidance.
PISA’s new Learning in the Digital World assessment provides new insights on how well prepared students are to work with digital tools and break complex problems into small solvable steps. Across OECD countries, almost two-thirds of students reached the relevant proficiency level in computational problem solving. But only half reached this level while also demonstrating basic proficiency in science, reading and mathematics. The results underline the need for both: strong foundations in the core subjects and the ability to apply that knowledge when solving problems with digital tools.
Further PISA analysis will follow in 2027. Results from the Foreign Language Assessment will be released in April, followed by the full results and analysis from the Learning in the Digital World assessment in May.
See the Overview of the 2025 PISA with key findings and charts (this link can be used in media articles).
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