Every three years, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests the reading, maths and science skills of 15-year-olds in countries across the world.

Each Pisa cycle other skills are tested: in 2025, computational problem solving and use of AI were two additional topics covered. Pisa, carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), also asks the young people tested questions about their experience of school and their attitude to learning.

The latest Pisa results have recently been released. They are most useful when looking at patterns over time. Because only a sample of pupils in each country are tested each year, any single result for a country on one subject will have some uncertainty about it. East Asian countries continue to get the highest scores, with Singapore and a number of Chinese jurisdictions again in the top spots.

Elsewhere, the overall picture is a troubling decline in reading internationally. Students seem to be struggling with skills such as interpreting information and assessing evidence, with an increase in “hasty........

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