Israel’s scores on a key international test of student comprehension dropped precipitously in the latest 2025 results, with the country scoring below average in reading, math and science and registering its lowest-ever results in those skills.
The Programme for International Student Assessment tests, known as PISA, is a measure of 15-year-olds’ aptitude in reading, math and science run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It is carried out once every three years. The report, published Tuesday, also included an additional category for computational problem solving.
Israel is now ranked 43rd in the world, down from 38th in the last test in 2022, and 33rd among developed countries, down from 31st. The 2025 score average is Israel’s lowest since it joined the survey in 2000.
The country lost an average of 29 points across all four subjects in the newly published 2025 results, the second sharpest decline of any country, after Latvia.
Students saw their biggest drop in reading, scoring 436, down from 474 in the 2022 test; in science, they were at 442, down from 465; in math, they scored 433, down from 458, and they got 444 in computational problem solving. The OECD average for those subjects is 461, 482, 463, and 500, respectively. The results for schools in the Palestinian Authority were 359 for science, 350 for reading, 354 for math and 393 for computational problem solving.
