BAS Editor William Chislett
Spain’s 15-year-old students performed badly in the latest assessment of their skills in mathematics, science and reading in the 2025 PISA tests, conducted every three years by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The 2025 results for Spain were worse than those in 2022 and below the OECD average, except in computational problem solving, an added test, where Spain’s scores were almost the same as the average (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. PISA 2025 results
| Country | Global score | Mathematics | Science | Reading | Computational problem solving |
| France | 1,894 | 458 | 483 | 456 | 497 |
| Germany | 1,913 | 464 | 486 | 465 | 498 |
| Italy | 1,915 | 468 | 483 | 474 | 490 |
| Spain | 1,884 | 457 | 477 | 451 | 499 |
| United Kingdom | 2,016 | 488 | 511 | 494 | 523 |
| OECD average | – | 463 | 482 | 461 | 500 |
Source: PISA, OECD.
The PISA tests (Programme for International Student Assessment) are seen as the most reliable measure of the quality of school systems internationally. It may be some comfort for Spain’s education authorities that their bad results coincided with a decline across most of the 38 OECD countries. One in five students is now a low performer in the three subjects, up from 16% in 2022.
The 2022 results were partly affected by the COVID pandemic. With that impact over, the 2025 results should, at least theoretically, have been better than in 2022. Not only was this not the case, but Spain’s results were strikingly lower than in 2015 and among the worst since the PISA tests were started in 2000 (see Figure 2). Particularly worrying was the fall of 45 points in reading, the gateway to all learning, the equivalent of more than two years of study.
Figure 2. Spain’s PISA scores 2015, 2022 and 2025
| 2015 | 2022 | 2025 | |
| Mathematics | 486 | 473 | 457 |
| Science | 493 | 485 | 477 |
| Reading | 496 | 474 | 451 |
Source: PISA, OECD.
A smaller proportion of students in Spain than on average across OECD countries were top performers (Level 5 or 6) in at least one subject. At the same time, a similar proportion of students as on average achieved a minimum level of proficiency (Level 2 or higher) in all three subjects.
There are wide differences in the PISA results by region. While Castile-León scored 477 in mathematics, 495 in science and 469 in reading (much better than the national average), Valencia’s respective scores were 435, 450 and 424. Teachers in Valencia went on strike for several weeks in June in support of more resources for state schools and better working conditions. Valencia’s score in reading was 58 points lower than in 2022.
Milagros Tolón, the Education Minister in the Socialist-led minority central government, said the root of the poor results was reading. ‘If you don’t understand what you’re reading, it’s impossible for you to solve a problem in maths, physics, chemistry or any other subject’. The reading score of 11 of Spain’s 17 regions and the North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla was 20 points or more lower than in 2022.
Education began to be devolved to Spain’s regions in 1980, a process completed in 2000. Eleven of them are currently run by the Popular Party, four of them in coalition with the populist far-right VOX.
The PISA test was conducted in 91 countries and taken by 760,000 students, 30,000 of them in Spain. Most participating Chinese jurisdictions, together with Estonia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and the UK, ranked among the 10 highest-performing education systems in science, mathematics and reading.
While Spain’s results can be compared to those of other countries and previous cycles, Catalonia’s results are not reported separately this time. This was because of high levels of student exclusions by Catalan schools from the tests. This tends to produce an upward bias. Schools participating in the tests can only exclude a certain percentage of students for a variety of reasons. Catalonia’s exclusions increased from 5.6% in 2022 to 23.2%. The Catalan government said the high level was due to a ‘technical error’. There is a suspicion, however, that it was done to make the results look better.
As well as measuring academic success, PISA also gives a glimpse into school life and resources. In 2025, 49% of students in Spain were in schools whose principals reported that instruction was hindered, to some extent, by a perceived lack of teaching staff (OECD average: 39%); the corresponding share for a perceived lack of assisting staff was 72% (OECD average: 39%).
These factors partly explain the poor results. Other reasons are the pernicious impact of an excessive use of digital technologies, the fact that children are not read to as much and also that they read less, while they have less family support and a greater loss of capacity to concentrate. ‘We cannot say for sure, but falling levels of reading for enjoyment and the shift towards digital reading –skimming social-media feeds and rapidly processing information– may be reducing the ability of students to engage with complex texts and data’, said Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director for education and skills. He said schools with clear policies on mobile-phone use report better outcomes and fewer students distracted by digital devices.
Spain also has one of the EU’s largest child poverty rates and a proportionately larger number of immigrant children who do not speak Spanish fluently and have educational gaps that need to be addressed. The number of 15-year-old pupils from migrant backgrounds (whose parents were both born outside the countries where the PISA assessment is taken) has risen by 25% across the OECD as a whole since 2018, and now accounts for 16.7% of the total. In Spain, the increase has been much greater: 64% (20.3% of the total).
The PISA results have come hard on the heels of the 2026 Shanghai ranking of world universities, which showed Spain now has only 30 universities in the top 1,000 (36 in 2025) and none in the top 100 (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Shanghai 2026 ranking of world universities, top 100 and top 1,000, number by country
| Top 100 | Top 1,000 | |
| France | 4 | 27 |
| Germany | 4 | 51 |
| Italy | 0 | 42 |
| Spain | 0 | 30 |
| United Kingdom | 8 | 57 |
Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
Higher levels of education tend to correlate with better job prospects. Spain’s early school-leaving rate –compulsory schooling ends at 16– has dropped sharply in recent years (12.8% in 2025, down from a whopping 30% in 2005) but is still above the EU average. More worrying is that 11.5% of those aged between 15 and 29 are NEETs (‘not in education, employment or training’, see Figure 4). Youth unemployment remains high at 23.8% (see Figure 5).
Figure 4. NEETS: not in education, employment or training (% of 15-29 year-olds)
| % | |
| France | 12.7 |
| Germany | 9.5 |
| Italy | 13.3 |
| Spain | 11.5 |
| United Kingdom | 12.7 |
Fuente: Eurostat.
Figure 5. Youth unemployment (under 25)
| % | |
| France | 21.4 |
| Germany | 7.2 |
| Italy | 16.9 |
| Spain | 23.8 |
| United Kingdom | 16.2 |
Source: Eurostat.
The PISA results are a wake-up call, and not just for Spain. The report card reads: ‘Must try harder’. The next assessment will tell us whether the authorities have done their homework and got to grips with their task.
Adapted from the version originally published by the Elcano Royal Institute.
