Results from the latest worldwide survey of reading, math and science skills among 15-year-old students have attracted widespread attention for the lowest global scores in the survey’s history.   

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is widely considered the most important international benchmark for student achievement. It has been administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) every three years since 2000 and has been likened to the Olympics of education.

The most recent survey in 2025 included 83 countries and eight distinct economies. Students were tested in the three traditional core subjects as well, for the first time, in computational problem-solving.

In the coming weeks and months, Canadian and international policymakers will no doubt be discussing overall improvements in their relative rankings or lamenting significant performance declines.

One might naturally wonder how Canada performs relative to the rest of the world and do these results warrant the attention they receive? Perhaps, more importantly, what role — if any — should PISA results have in shaping provincial education policies?

The most recent PISA results are the lowest scores (p. 3) ever recorded in Canada and are significantly below mean-scaled results from a decade earlier. Note, however, that these performance patterns are part of a larger global trend.

The table below depicts the average Canadian scaled scores in the last three surveys. The OECD averages are in brackets. Computational problem-solving appears for the first time.  

A difference of 20 points is roughly equivalent to one grade level. In practical terms, that means the average Canadian 15-year-old is roughly one grade level above same-age peers in mathematics and almost a grade-and-a-half ahead in........

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