The Portuguese Ministry of Education expressed "concern" over the PISA 2025 results, which reveal a historic decline in the performance of Portuguese students. Portugal scored 462 points in Reading, eight points below the 2000 result, and 460 points in Mathematics, approaching 2003 values. In the overall ranking, the country ranks 29th in Science, 26th in Reading, and 30th in Mathematics. The study involved nearly seven thousand 15-year-old Portuguese students, among more than 760,000 students from 91 countries.
Alexandre Homem Cristo, Secretary of State for Education since April 2024, ruled out direct political responsibility for the results, but took responsibility for finding solutions by 2029. The official stated that "these results from a public policy perspective are not directly linked to this Government's term," although the executive feels responsible for reversing the declining trend.
According to OECD calculations, the reduction in knowledge represents at least the loss of one year of learning. The Ministry of Education intends for Portuguese students to be above the OECD average in the next PISA edition in 2029. Among the ongoing measures, Homem Cristo highlighted investment in primary school libraries, reading fluency diagnostics, and a new training program for teachers in reading instruction pedagogy, prepared by EduQA.
The official identified the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on these young people, who were still in primary school at the time, and the growing difficulty of concentrating on tasks requiring greater effort as explanatory factors. He advocated for greater pedagogical diversity through curriculum review and essential learning, allowing teachers to adapt resources to each student's needs. He also acknowledged that the lack of teachers and specialists penalizes students, but emphasized that increased resources alone are not sufficient to improve results.
