Leaders | The learning power of PISA

Covid-19 was a disaster for the world’s schoolchildren

The costs of wasting brainpower are huge

Two standing teachers looking at disruptive children sitting at their desks — Image: Martina Paukova

Dec 5th 2023

EVERY THREE years for the past two decades analysts at the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, have asked pupils in dozens of places to take tests in reading, maths and science, the better to compare the quality of their schools. No one was expecting the latest round of exams, sat a year late in 2022 after years of pandemic-induced disruption, to bring good news. But the results, released on December 5th, are still a blow. An average teenager in the rich world is found to have fallen about six months behind in reading and nine months behind in maths, compared with peers who sat similar tests in 2018. In several rich countries 15-year-olds are performing at levels that back then would have been expected of learners a full year younger.