The results of Portuguese students in PISA 2025 are generating great concern at the Ministry of Education. Portugal regressed in Reading and Mathematics to levels from more than two decades ago, with students scoring 462 points in Reading (eight points below the 2000 result) and 460 points in Mathematics (values close to 2003). The Algarve, together with Lisbon and the Setúbal Peninsula, is among the regions where the greatest educational difficulties and problems in teacher recruitment are concentrated.
The report involved more than 760 thousand students from 91 countries, including almost seven thousand Portuguese 15-year-old students from 225 schools. Portugal improved progressively until 2015, when it surpassed the OECD average for the first time in all three assessed areas, moving from a country associated with "poor students" to one of Europe's greatest success stories. However, the improvement trend reversed in the last decade.
The Government distances itself from direct political responsibility for the worsening of learning outcomes, since the tests were administered approximately one year after the current ministerial team took office. However, the executive sets as its goal to reverse the decline trajectory by 2029 and wants Portuguese students above the OECD average in the next PISA edition. Among the ongoing measures are investment in libraries for primary school, reading fluency diagnosis and a new training program for teachers.
The Secretary of State Alexandre Homem Cristo pointed to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on these young people and the growing difficulty of concentration as causes of the poor performance. He also emphasized that results depend on the functioning of schools, the curriculum, assessment processes and the use of diagnostics to identify difficulties, rejecting that the strengthening of resources, by itself, is sufficient to improve results.
