PISA 2025 Results Show Broad Score Declines Across Spain and the OECD

Widespread decline across developed economies

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released results from its 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment, evaluating 760,000 students aged 15 across 90 participating countries. The data revealed an ongoing contraction in foundational competencies across the developed world. Between 2015 and 2025, average scores across OECD member countries fell by 27 points in reading, 22 points in mathematics, and 7 points in science. The OECD calculates that a 20-point drop corresponds approximately to the loss of one full academic year of learning. East Asian education systems in Singapore and South Korea diverged from the broader downward trend.

OECD researchers linked the persistent decline across school systems to increased screen time on digital devices, diminished student curiosity and willingness to expend effort, and declining long-form reading habits.

Spain registers lowest marks across all three disciplines

In Spain, where nearly 30,000 students from 956 schools completed tests, scores fell below both OECD and European Union averages in reading, mathematics, and science. Over the ten-year span between 2015 and 2025, Spanish student performance dropped by 45 points in reading, 30 points in mathematics, and 16 points in science. The 2025 cycle represented the first full cohort assessed under the LOMLOE national education framework approved in 2020 under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Opposition leaders in the People's Party attributed the poor national performance to curricular reforms and relaxed academic advancement requirements enacted under former education minister Pilar Alegría and current minister Milagros Tolón.

Regional divergences and data invalidation in Catalonia

Regional performance within Spain varied widely, with 13 autonomous communities experiencing declines of 20 points or more in reading relative to the 2022 evaluation. The Valencian Community fell by 58 points in reading to 424 points. Educational sources in the region linked the disruption to the October 2024 DANA flood disaster, which killed 232 people and temporarily displaced 48,000 students across more than 100 schools before testing took place in spring 2025.

In the Basque Country, reading scores fell by 47 points to leave male students at 402 points, level with Mexico's national average. The OECD excluded Catalonia from official international comparison tables after regional authorities excluded 23.2% of eligible pupils from the testing sample, well above the permissible 5% ceiling.

These data do not represent the student body as a whole, and therefore cannot be used for comparisons with other territories or previous PISA editions.

Latin America and the United States post reductions

Deterioration extended across North and South America, with the United States recording steep declines in reading performance. In Latin America, Argentina recorded its lowest scores since joining the testing cycle in 2006. Argentine 15-year-olds averaged 367 points in mathematics, 393 in science, and 389 in reading. Only 24% of Argentine students achieved baseline level 2 mathematics competency, compared with an OECD average of 65%, following public education budget reductions exceeding 45% under the government of Javier Milei.

Mexico and Argentina recorded their lowest mathematics results in two decades, while Chile registered further deterioration and scores in Brazil, Colombia, and Costa Rica remained stagnant.