Arabic version: أستراليا تسجّل أدنى نتائج لها على الإطلاق في القراءة والرياضيات باختبار بيزا
According to ABC News, Australian high school students recorded their lowest-ever maths and reading scores in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), extending a decline that has continued for two decades. The 2025 results showed a slight improvement in science compared with the 2022 test, but the longer-term picture remained weaker overall.
Australian 15-year-olds ranked 10th in science and reading and 16th in mathematics among 91 countries and economies that took the assessment. Australia remained above the OECD average in all three areas. Jonas Bertling of the Australian Council for Educational Research, which administers the test, said the data showed long-term declines in reading and mathematics while science scores had stabilised.
The OECD estimates that 20 points in a test score is roughly equal to one year of learning for an average student. On that measure, science students are now almost one year behind those tested in 2006. Students were roughly two years behind the 2000 reading result and a little more than two years behind the 2003 mathematics result.
Classroom discipline and attendance were also identified as concerns. Australia ranked 69th of 80 countries on disciplinary climate, based on science students’ responses. Twenty-one per cent said they could not work well in most or all lessons, compared with an OECD average of 19 per cent, while 41 per cent reported noise and disorder against an OECD average of 31 per cent. Forty-four per cent reported skipping a day of school in the two weeks before testing, compared with 24 per cent across the OECD.
Australia performed strongly in the new “learning in the digital world” category, recording a mean score of 532 against the OECD average of 500. Seventy-five per cent of Australian students reached the national proficient standard. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said reforms to teaching practice and public school funding were important, and said the results pointed to a need to reduce screen time in schools.
