The PISA 2025 report warns of the educational collapse in Spain: reading falls to historic lows

The PISA report, prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is one of the main international tools for understanding students' educational level and comparing their competencies with those of young people from other countries. The evaluation analyzes whether students are able to apply acquired knowledge to situations of daily life and to the challenges they will encounter in their academic and professional future. In this edition, students from 90 countries and economies participated, including Spain.

PISA is conducted periodically among students around 15 years old and examines three major areas: science, reading, and mathematics. In 2025, science has taken the place of main competency, while the other two have been evaluated as secondary subjects. In Spain, the test involved the participation of 956 educational centers and nearly 30,000 students aged 15 and 16, 77% of whom were enrolled in the fourth year of ESO. The results are obtained from tests conducted by this representative sample and allow for comparisons with both the OECD average and the European Union as a whole.

The results reveal an especially worrying scenario in Spain. Half of the students are at low performance levels in science, and only 28% reach the minimum competency level considered necessary to cope with everyday life situations and face their professional future. Added to this is the deterioration recorded in reading and mathematics, which intensifies compared to previous editions and reaches historical lows.

Reading, the main focus of concern

The most pronounced setback appears in reading comprehension. Spanish students obtain 451 points, compared to the OECD average of 461 and the EU average of 459. The drop compared to 2022 is 23 points, much higher than the eight points lost between 2018 and 2022. If the perspective is broadened, Spain has accumulated a 45-point decline in a decade.

The deterioration of reading is particularly concerning because this skill forms the basis for accessing all other learning. The OECD senior analyst and head of PISA coordination, Tue Halgreen, warns that students have difficulty dealing with extensive texts and tend to read faster and more superficially. The phenomenon, moreover, is not limited to Spain: countries like Portugal, France, and Germany also show significant setbacks.

Mathematics also does not escape the deterioration. Spain reaches 457 points, six less than the OECD average and the EU as a whole, both with 463. In the last decade, the accumulated loss amounts to 29 points, which also places this competence among the major pending subjects of the Spanish educational system.

Screens 

The report also points to a general deterioration in academic performance associated with the growing prominence of screens, with a particularly significant impact on reading. The difficulty in maintaining attention and understanding long texts thus appears as one of the challenges that transcend Spanish borders and affect the learning of adolescents in different educational systems.

Not all indicators, however, are negative. Spanish students show a greater capacity for perseverance in the face of learning difficulties than the international average. Their index stands at 0.26, compared to 0 for the OECD and -0.04 for the European Union. They also show a curiosity towards learning science that is higher than the OECD average.

The study also highlights the high sense of belonging to the educational center among Spanish students. The index reaches 0.46, well above the 0.09 of the OECD and the 0.12 of the EU. This result is maintained among both boys and girls and among students from different socioeconomic levels.

In terms of equity, Spain also presents a smaller performance gap between the most advantaged and the most economically disadvantaged students than the average recorded in the OECD and the EU. This data places the Spanish educational system in a relatively favorable position regarding its ability to reduce the weight of socioeconomic background on academic results, despite the general decline in the evaluated competencies.