Romania Posts Its Worst PISA Results in 20 Years as Reading Skills Collapse and Urban-Rural Gap Nears 100 Points

Romania’s latest PISA results have exposed a deepening weakness in reading and a stubborn divide between students in cities and rural areas. Romanian pupils performed below the OECD average in every area tested in PISA 2025, with the urban-rural gap approaching 100 points.

The findings were presented at a Bucharest event organised by the Ministry of Education and Research together with the Institute of Educational Sciences. Officials, researchers, education experts and teachers met under the theme “From Data to Education Policy,” with the stated aim of turning the figures into concrete public-policy priorities.

More than 760,000 students from 91 countries and economies took part in PISA 2025. Romania’s representative sample included 7,725 15-year-olds from 322 schools. The Romanian data met the OECD’s quality standards.

Romanian students recorded average scores of 425 points in science, 419 in mathematics, 413 in reading and 442 in computational problem-solving, which was assessed for the first time as part of the digital learning component. Science and mathematics remained relatively stable compared with the previous edition, but reading fell by 16 points.

Only 48% of Romanian students reached the minimum proficiency level in mathematics, 52% in reading and 54% in science. The corresponding OECD averages were 65%, 69% and 74%. Education officials and experts discussed measures to improve school performance and reduce the persistent differences between rural and urban students.