Lisbon, Sept. 8, 2026 (Lusa) - Portuguese pupils achieved their worst-ever academic results in the reading test of the international PISA programme, exacerbating a downward trend in which the results now represent more than a year of lost learning.
This is one of the conclusions of the latest edition of PISA – the Programme for International Student Assessment, the largest international education study carried out by the OECD, which involved more than 760,000 pupils from 91 countries and economies.
The data released on Tuesday bring bad news for Portugal: the 15-year-olds assessed last year saw their performance in Maths, Reading and Science decline once again.
The results of the 6,945 pupils from 225 Portuguese schools «have reverted to figures close to those observed in 2006 across all three subjects, completely undoing previous gains», the study states.
But looking at the subjects individually, the situation is even more worrying.
Portuguese pupils now performed worse in Reading than in 2000, and in Maths they achieved a result close to that of their peers who sat the test in 2003.
Portugal took part in PISA for the first time in 2000 and, at that time, Portuguese pupils were among the worst performers and well below the OECD average.
By 2015, their results in the tests, which take place every three years, had improved to such an extent that the Director of the OECD's Education and Skills Department, Andreas Schleicher, described the country of former «poor pupils» as one of «Europe's greatest success stories».
However, pupils who sat the Reading test last year scored 462 points – eight points below the score achieved in 2000 – on a scale where 500 points is the benchmark average set by the OECD.
As for Maths, performance has fallen back to 2003 levels, when Portugal took part in PISA for the second time and scored 466 points. Pupils who sat the test last year scored 460 in Maths.
Science was the subject with the least marked decline, remaining in line with the OECD average at 482 points.
In addition to this general decline, which mirrors a trend seen in many OECD countries, the report contains other worrying figures, such as the increase in the number of Portuguese pupils whose knowledge falls below the minimum proficiency level.
On a six-level scale, where the first two levels represent very basic knowledge, there has been a sharp rise in the number of pupils below Level 2, particularly in Maths and Reading (an increase of 11 percentage points over the last decade).
The study shows that 65% of Portuguese pupils reached at least Level 2 in Maths, 72% in Reading and 76% in Science; in the latter case, this means they are able to identify the correct explanation for familiar phenomena.
In Mathematics, this level means that they are able, for example, to compare the total distance between two alternative routes or convert prices into another currency, according to an explanation by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Pupils who achieve at least Level 2 in Portuguese are able to identify the main idea in a text of moderate length, for example.
Portugal remains statistically close to the OECD average, but has seen a decline in academic achievement, with few pupils demonstrating excellence: only 6% are top performers in Science (the OECD average is 7%), 6% in Mathematics (8% in the OECD) and just 3% in Reading (half the OECD average, which stands at 6%).
The researchers conclude that the Portuguese education system remains relatively capable of ensuring a minimum standard for many pupils, but appears to struggle to produce outstanding performance.
In a comparison of the 90 countries involved, Portugal ranks 29th in Science, 26th in Reading and 30th in Mathematics in PISA 2025.
Compared with the previous study, from 2023, Portuguese pupils have moved up one place in Science, but have dropped two places in Reading and one in Mathematics – subjects in which they lost 15 and 12 points respectively.
SIM/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
