The release of the results of the latest cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) made headlines around the world. More than 760,000 students assessed internationally, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds from 91 countries and economies. But the initial data are just the beginning.
When you dig deeper and look beyond the test scores, the world’s largest international assessment of how well students can apply their learning in science, reading and mathematics to real-life problems and situations provides rich insights that shine a light on how systems are preparing them with the skills they need to analyse, reason and communicate so that they can thrive beyond school.
The day after the OECD led the simultaneous release of the first PISA 2025 reports, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the University of Melbourne brought together researchers, policymakers, system leaders, and educators to begin to unpack the findings and discuss the implications for policy and classroom practice.
Delivering the opening address of Beyond the Results: What PISA 2025 Means for Education in Australia, ACER CEO Lisa Rodgers told attendees at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership and a global livestream audience that no education system had ever improved because of a ranking.
‘Systems only improve because they learn. That's what PISA is here to help us do. … If we only think about where Australia sits, we will have missed the most useful thing that the data gives us, because ranking isn't a strategy, a score isn't a plan, and a position is not destiny.’
Students feeling supported by their teachers
As reported in Teacher, the 2025 results show B-S-J-Z (China)* and Singapore topped the tables across the board, with their students performing significantly higher than their international counterparts in all 3 core domains. In a video presentation to the Melbourne event, OECD Director of Education and Skills and Teacher columnist Andreas Schleicher, explored what the global map of educational performance looks like, explaining that when you look deeper there’s something intriguing. ‘The world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated countries, and poor and badly educated ones. In fact, GDP per capita explains just half of the differences – the other half is about policies, about practice.’
Delving further into the data, Schleicher said it clearly shows a very strong relationship between students feeling supported by their teachers and learning outcomes. ‘Where students feel “I have a teacher who knows who I am, who believes in who I want to become, who accompanies me on my journey”, they do a lot better on the academic outcomes, including also some of the social-emotional outcomes.’
Summarising key findings from the Australian results, Dr Eveline Gebhardt – ACER’s Head of Division, Assessment Development, Implement and Reporting – said students continued to perform above the OECD average, and Australia was one of the top performers after the East Asian countries. Students also did well in the innovative domain for PISA 2025, Learning in the Digital World, performing well above the OECD average. However, long-term declines in science, reading and mathematics scores remain a challenge.
Dr Gebhardt said Australian students reported that teacher support was high. ‘They say that teachers show an interest in every student’s learning, they continue teaching until students understand and give extra help to students ...’
In Australia, 14,658 students from 766 schools participated in the assessment, representing approximately 275,000 15-year-old students. ‘What we do with these results and with the data is what matters,’ she reiterated, ‘and I’m very excited that we’re starting that today, just one day after the international release.’
Celebration, investigation and scaling up success
University of Melbourne Professor John Hattie said the findings deserve both celebration and serious investigation. On celebration, he said the fact Australia is in the top 10 to 12 in the world is ‘pretty incredible’. ‘The second less comfortable [truth] is that Australia remains highly ranked, but our mean performance as you’ve seen is falling. And it’s probably no comfort that we’re in good company of many other countries who are falling.’
He spoke about the need to teach both facts and problem-solving skills from an early age, rather than introducing problem solving later. ‘I’m greedy, I want both, and we have to stop this either/or discussion.’
But one of the key messages from his presentation was addressing how to scale up success. ‘I’ve never been in a school in my time, ever, where there wasn’t a group of excellent teachers with an incredibly high impact on kids … we are surrounded by excellence in our education system, we just need to scale it up … great teaching and learning for every student by design, not by chance.’
Sharing examples through Teacher
There were also 2 panel discussions: Global trends and diverse perspectives with Professor Pamela Snow (Distinguished Professor, Cognitive Psychology, in the School of Education at La Trobe University), Professor Martin Westwell (Chief Executive, Department for Education South Australia), Dr Jordana Hunter (Program Director – Education, McKinnon) and Dr Jonas Bertling (Research Director, Implementing and Reporting, ACER) facilitated by Anthony Mackay (Board Chair, National Centre on Education and the Economy).
I had the pleasure of facilitating the second panel discussion: Local expertise and using evidence with Rachael Gore (Leading Teacher Curriculum, Albert Park College), Professor Therese Hopfenbeck (Professor in Educational Assessment and Head of School of Learning Science, University of Melbourne), Dr Goran Lazendic (PISA International Survey Director, ACER), and Dr Sally Larsen (Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of New England). The main topic was the barriers and enablers to better use of evidence in schools when we know better than ever what works to impact learning.
We’ll be bringing you more on these rich discussions, and the great examples that were shared, in a series of Teacher articles.
*B-S-J-Z (China) refers to the 4 municipalities/provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and are not representative of China as a whole country.
Stay tuned for Andreas Schleicher’s latest Teacher column on Monday, which explores some of the early data and global educational insights from PISA 2025, including the changing landscape of reading performance and translating scientific talent into scientific ambition.
PISA has been conducted every 3 years since 2000. It is delivered in Australia by ACER on behalf of the Australian Government and all state and territory education authorities. ACER is also the OECD’s international contractor for PISA, responsible for the Programme’s design and implementation globally. Visit www.acer.org/au/pisa to find out more about PISA and access all the reports.
