Several factors are behind Swedish students' Pisa race, according to experts

Every third Swedish 15-year-old does not meet the knowledge requirements in reading comprehension and mathematics, according to the latest Pisa survey. The National Education Agency has called for further analyses, despite that it did not take long until several Swedish politicians had explanations for the race.

In the video at the top, we go through some claims and how the experts see the matter.

SVT has been in contact with four experts and researchers who all believe that a deeper analysis of the Pisa survey is required to understand what is behind it.

They agree on the following:

That there is not a single, clear main explanation for the decline in results; on the contrary, they return to the fact that several factors are likely to interact.

- The short answer is that Pisa 2025 does not support any of the unequivocal explanations that have been put forward. Rather, the results point to several possible and interacting factors, says Linda Fälth, professor of pedagogy, Linnaeus University.

That the sitting government's policy, profit taking or screen time/reduced reading could not be singled out as the main reason.

- I don't think that either Swedish immigration policy or profit taking among independent schools is the single most important explanation for the decline reported from Pisa. Especially since the trend for the Swedish students is very similar to the trend in all Nordic countries and a large number of other OECD countries, says Hanna Eklöf, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied Educational Sciences, Umeå University.

That the development must be reviewed over a longer period of time and in a broader context.

- The decline began before the last change of government and similar declines can be found in many other countries. The claim can therefore not be tested with Pisa, says Samuel Sollerman, senior lecturer at the Department of Subject Didactics, Stockholm University.