Students from 81 countries took the OECD exam; pandemic affected learning, experts say.
Of the 81 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on 15-year-old students, Mexico ranked 51st. in Mathematics, Reading and Science.
The report highlights that although in 2022 countries were still facing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is inaccurate to blame confinement as the only cause of the drop in scores.
According to the results revealed on Monday, December 4th by the OECD, in Mathematics, Mexico achieved 395 points, which is why the country fell 14 points, as in 2018, Mexico obtained 409 points in this subject.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Reading, Mexico reached 415 points and in Science 410, that is, a decline of five and nine points respectively, as in 2018 the country achieved 420 and 419 points respectively.
As for students, only seven out of every one thousand were placed in the most outstanding levels; four, in Reading and one in Science.
In contrast, one in three students were at the lowest levels. That is, at levels one and two.
The five countries that stood out in the PISA test were Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Estonia and Switzerland. The top four nations surpassed 500 points in all three subjects, while Switzerland reached 483 points in Reading.
In the last decade, Mexico barely achieved an increase of two points in Mathematics, four in Reading and one in Science.
A notable finding of the PISA 2022 report is the general decline in results in general.
“From PISA 2018 to PISA 2022, the evaluation fell 15 points in Mathematics; 10, in Reading, and two in Science, decreasing from 487 to 472 in Mathematics; from 486 in Reading, to 476, and from 487, to 485 in Science,” the report highlights.
The OECD report highlights there was an unprecedented drop in the assessment compared to 2018. However, scores in Reading and Science had already shown declines before the pandemic.
He explains that the relationship between pandemic-induced school closures and the decline in scores is not so clear, since the PISA results do not show a clear difference in performance trends between educational systems with short school closures, such as Sweden and Iceland compared to countries that experienced longer closures, such as Brazil, Ireland and Jamaica.
“PISA provides the evidence and public policy findings that countries need to address these issues. There is an urgent need to take action. The task for governments is to help education systems rise to this challenge,” says Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills and Special Adviser on Education Policy to OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann.
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