PISA 2025 results show decade-long drop in global reading and maths scores

Global test results

Results from the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that 15-year-olds across the 38 member countries of the OECD recorded their lowest average levels of performance in reading, mathematics, and science. Across the OECD, average reading scores fell by 28 points between 2015 and 2025, a decrease equivalent to approximately 1.5 years of learning. Over the same ten-year span, average mathematics scores declined by 22 points, representing a loss of just over one year of learning. The assessment gathered data from roughly 750,000 students across 91 participating countries. OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann called for immediate policy responses to the results.

PISA 2025 shows that reversing declines in student performance is urgent.

Reading habits and cognitive decline

The OECD noted that the decline in reading was pervasive and linked to a weakening capacity among teenagers to maintain focus on complex texts. National Center on Education and the Economy chief executive Vicki Phillips evaluated the broader economic implications of the assessment.

What PISA tells us is that those very skills that are needed in a more modern economy and world are the ones that are declining.

The share of hasty readers, defined as students who rush through text blocks and submit quick but incorrect answers, nearly doubled between 2018 and 2025. OECD analysts cited skimming on social media feeds and changing digital habits as factors that reduce student motivation to process long materials. Disruption from Covid-19 school closures also contributed to lower attainment, although test scores had already started dropping before the pandemic. One in five 15-year-old students across OECD member states is now classified as a low performer who lacks basic foundational skills for further education and employment.

Performance across North America and Europe

In the United States, reading scores dropped by 14 points since 2022, marking the lowest reading and mathematics scores for American students in over twenty years. Approximately 74% of American students reached basic proficiency in reading, and 65% achieved it in mathematics, while science scores showed a modest increase. In Switzerland, reading proficiency dropped from 492 points in 2015 to 470 points in 2025, and mathematics dropped from 521 to 499 points, while science held at 501 points and model-based problem solving reached 520 points.

In Ireland, reading performance fell 18 points and maths fell 23 points over the decade, though the country maintained the top reading score in the European Union. Low performers in Ireland accounted for 24.2% of students in mathematics, 17.6% in science, and 16.5% in reading.

Divergence in the United Kingdom and Asia

Classrooms in England avoided the downward trend seen across other jurisdictions, showing no decline in reading and mathematics capability since 2022 and maintaining strong science outcomes. In Scotland, science results recovered to 2018 levels, but mathematics and reading remained lower, with performance among higher-attaining students stagnating. In Northern Ireland, where almost 3,500 pupils from 104 schools took the computer-based assessment in September and October 2025, science scores remained high while reading and maths scores dropped over the decade. Globally, students in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Estonia, and the United Kingdom ranked among the top performers, while four Chinese jurisdictions secured the highest average marks in mathematics and science.