The 2025 PISA Report is devastating. Spain has recorded its worst historical results in Science, Reading, and Mathematics—the three main core competencies measured by the PISA assessment. It scored “significantly lower” than the average for EU and OECD countries, coming in at 477 compared to 482 and 481, respectively. The data released this Tuesday by the OECD shows that 15- and 16-year-old students in Spain have seen their scores decline for more than a decade. In Reading, for instance, 15- and 16-year-olds dropped the equivalent of a full academic year in proficiency over just three years.
Only students from Asturias (471), Madrid (469), Castile and León (466), Cantabria (461), Castile-La Mancha (461), and La Rioja (461) exceeded the EU and OECD averages. However, none of them reached the national average recorded in 2022 (474).
The reasons behind the drop are nevertheless framed within “a sustained international decline,” according to Tue Halgreen, senior policy analyst at the OECD, who spoke on Monday. “There is a rise in skim reading, and as a result, students fail to properly grasp text content,” he explained.
Consequently, the Secretary of State for Education, Abelardo de la Rosa, denied any causal link between the low scores and the current education law, the so-called Ley Celaá enacted during Pedro Sánchez’s first term. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Spanish students achieved their highest scores back in 2015.
Today, top-ranking Japanese students lead their Spanish peers by between two and a half to three and a half academic years, depending on the subject area compared.
