Conducted every three years since 2000, PISA assesses 15-year-old students’ ability to apply their science, reading and mathematics knowledge and skills to solve real-life problems and provides a prominent global ranking of school systems across the OECD.

Top-performing China and Singapore took out the top spots in PISA 2025, with their students achieving at significantly higher levels than their international counterparts. 

ACER research director Dr Jonas Bertling says the ‘headline result’ is that Australia continues to be a very strong performer on the international stage, ranking 11th in science and reading, 17th in maths and 9th in a new domain called ‘Learning in the Digital World’.

“We can be quite content, I think, with these findings. At the same time, there are challenges that are obvious from these results.

“And some of the challenges are declines in the long run for reading and maths,” Bertling tells EducationHQ.

Australian students’ performance in reading has declined by 7 points since 2022 and 37 points since 2000. This is despite achieving a mean score of 491 points – significantly higher than the 461-point OECD average.

Maths has seen the most severe long-term decline of the three core domains, with performance dropping by 46 points since PISA first began in 2003, and 9 points since 2022. 

Weighing in on the results, deputy principal Dr Greg Ashman from Ballarat Clarendon College in Victoria has raised alarm over the finding.

“Australia’s mathematics trajectory is deeply worrying and it probably reflects the poverty of our mathematics curriculum,” he flags in a Substack post.

Bertling says most OECD countries have seen a long-term decline in student performance, so this story is not unique to Australia – and our waning performance over time has been less severe than that of others. Our results in science have also remained broadly the same, he adds. 

While the researcher says that PISA is not a study that can determine cause and effect, Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has taken aim at digital devices in light of the new results.

“PISA data … shows the more kids are online, the more their results decline.

“Other tests like TIMSS, PIRLS and previous PISA rounds show the same thing. Students who use screens a lot score lower than those who don’t.

“This doesn’t mean there is no place for technology in schools. Students need to learn digital skills. That includes how to use, and how not to use, AI.

“But it does point to the need to wind back the amount of screen time in schools – a digital detox…” Clare said.

There are a number of other ‘challenges’ for schools evident in Australia’s 2025 data, Bertling says.

“For example, (our) disciplinary climate is relatively lower in Australia than in other countries. So, four in 10 students report frequent disruptions in the classroom.

“We also see that bullying continues to be an issue with two out of 10 students reporting being exposed to one form of bullying behaviour at least monthly.

“So, these are some things that should be looked at with some level of concern.”

Yet there are some noteable good news stories to be found too, he adds.

“We're seeing very promising stories, like First Nations students improving by 16 score points in science since 2022. I think that's a really good story to tell here.

“Also, 30 per cent of low socio-economic status kids [have been] classified as resilient, meaning despite their socio-economic disadvantage, they are among the highest performers.

“Those are some of the positive stories I feel might easily get missed…”

A small number of education systems performed considerably higher than Australia across all three domains tested: Singapore, B-S-J-Z (China)*, Macao (China), Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea and Estonia. 

Clare pointed out that the UK has jumped three places in reading, four places in maths and seven places in science, indicating Australia should watch and learn. 

“Their results show us what is possible and why the reforms we are rolling out – the sort of reforms England rolled out almost 20 years ago – are so important,” he said. 

Out of all the assessment domains, Australian students scored the strongest in Learning in the Digital World, which measured how well they use digital tools to source and evaluate information, solve problems and learn via reflection and feedback.

Australia achieved a score of 532 points compared with the OECD average of 500 points, with more than three-quarters of students attaining the National Proficient Standard and some 38 per cent classified as high achievers.

Bertling says these figures are “very encouraging”.

“This indicates that Australian students are very well prepared to work in digital, complex environments, which, as we know, will become more important in a digital AI-based world,” Bertling says.

AEU federal president Correna Haythorpe has suggested the results offer a stark picture of the inequality within Australia’s education system.

"It's important to look beyond simplistic rankings with PISA,” Haythorpe said.

“It is a significant data set that shows the strong connection between prioritising equity in education and its link to educational outcomes for students.

“These figures show Australia has an unacceptably large gap between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students, with a higher proportion of students from lowersocioeconomic backgrounds attending public schools.”

The union leader argued that more targeted investment was needed in education.  

“We see countries like Estonia that prioritise school funding, respect teachers and teaching as a profession, and show a strong commitment to public education, have made significant advances in their results," she added.

Other key results:  

  • Australian students met the National Proficient Standard at rates of 60 per cent in science, 55 per cent in reading and 49 per cent in mathematics. 
  • Achievement patterns differed across domains, with mathematics recording the highest proportion of low-performing students (29 per cent) and the lowest proportion of high-performing students (10 per cent), highlighting ongoing challenges.
  • Achievement varied across states and territories, with the ACT recording the highest results nationally across science, reading, mathematics, and Learning in the Digital World.  
  • Independent schools recorded the highest average achievement across science, reading and mathematics, with their students more likely to attain the National Proficient Standard. 

More than 760,000 students from 91 countries participated in PISA 2025, including a representative sample of 14,658 Australian students drawn from 766 schools. 

*B-S-J-Z (China) refers to the four municipalities/provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and are not representative of China as a whole country.