PISA test: Argentina falls over three years to 72nd among 91 countries

Argentina’s educational decline deepened in the latest PISA results. Students performed worse in science, mathematics and reading over three years, pushing the country further down the international ranking. In the area that received the main focus this year, science, Argentina ranked 72nd among 91 countries and economies.

PISA, organized every three years by the OECD, assesses how 15-year-old students use knowledge and skills in mathematics, reading and science. The 2025 edition involved 760,000 students worldwide, representing 33 million students. Although the OECD average also declined, Argentina’s fall was considerably sharper.

Some 48.8% of Argentine students failed to reach the basic level across the three subjects. They could not reliably interpret simple information in a graph, understand basic texts or calculate straightforward price-per-unit relationships, abilities the report describes as necessary for everyday situations and continued learning. Only 1.2% reached the highest performance levels in all three areas, and almost no students reached the top levels in mathematics.

Argentina scored 393 points in science, close to its 2006 result of 391 and well below its 2022 score of 426. Its mathematics score fell to 367, the country’s lowest since it began taking part in PISA. Reading reached 382 points, near the 2006 low of 374. Argentina ranked 62nd in reading and 75th in mathematics.

The country lost 13 points in science, 12 in reading and 11 in mathematics. Only eight countries recorded larger declines. China led the 2025 results, followed by Singapore, Macao, Taipei and Japan, while Kenya, Tajikistan and Rwanda occupied the bottom three positions. PISA measures how students understand, solve and communicate in real-world situations, rather than simply testing the curriculum they have studied.