The PISA 2025 results, released by the OECD, reveal that Portuguese students are worse at Mathematics and Reading than 20 years ago, having reversed gains accumulated over the past decades. A total of 6,945 Portuguese students participated in this assessment, out of 760,000 students globally. In Mathematics, the average was 460 points, the lowest value ever recorded since Portugal began participating in the study. In Reading, the average was 462 points, also the worst result ever. In Science, the average was 482 points, below the OECD average of 484 points.
The COVID-19 pandemic is pointed out as one of the causes for this deterioration, but the OECD emphasizes that performance was already declining before the health crisis, which indicates the existence of structural problems in the education system. Between 2015 and 2025, the average of Portuguese students dropped 36 points in Reading and the number of students with low performance increased 11 percentage points in Mathematics and Reading. The gap between students with the best and worst grades also increased in Science.
The study also indicates that 11% of Portuguese students from less favorable socioeconomic backgrounds manage to be among the top 25% in Science performance, being considered "academically resilient." Regarding attitudes toward school, 77% of students say they are curious about various topics and 20% consider that school was a waste of time. As for technology use, 31% of students indicate that classmates are frequently distracted during Science classes by the use of digital tools, and 48% use Artificial Intelligence chatbots to help with learning, at least once a week.
