The data is sobering: the performance of young people in Germany in math, reading and science is worse than ever.
It's not about school material or grades: the PISA study tests whether 15-year-olds can apply their knowledge in more than 90 countries around the world. For example, understanding a longer email and figuring out what is required of them. Other skills that are tested include comparing prices or correctly interpreting information from a graphic.
In Germany, one in three 15-year-olds does not reach the basic level of proficiency in reading and mathematics, and about one in four in the natural sciences. Performance in all three areas is lower than ever since the PISA studies began 25 years ago.
The race to catch up is over, says Samuel Greiff, head of the German PISA study. Benefits have been falling continuously since 2015. At that time, young people achieved more than 500 PISA points in mathematics. Today there are 464.
Reading ability worries OECD
Reading ability has declined in many countries. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which coordinates the PISA study, is concerned about this. Because reading is the basis for almost all further learning. If you don't understand a math word problem, you can't solve it.
Many young people find it difficult to understand longer and complex texts. At the same time, the number of so-called “hasty readers” has increased internationally. This means that young people quickly scan the texts and then often give wrong answers.
OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher considers this development to be alarming, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. Exactly those skills that would become more important in the future were lost: critically questioning information, recognizing connections and developing one's own point of view.
The OECD sees a possible explanation in changing reading behavior. Quickly skimming through content on Instagram, TikTok and other social media sites could make concentrated reading more difficult. However, PISA cannot prove this connection.
What other countries do better
PISA also shows that things can be different. Singapore, Japan, Estonia and Korea are among the countries with the best-performing education systems. Samuel Greiff emphasizes that they did not just rely on individual major reforms, but also continuously made improvements.
Canada also does a lot of things right: they look early to see where a student is having difficulties. Anyone who has problems calculating percentages, for example, receives targeted support, the success of which will be checked later. Estonia, on the other hand, relies on a consistent concept when it comes to digitalization: children gain their first digital experiences in kindergarten and later learn to write emails and program apps.
OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher sees another thing that successful school systems have in common: less material is taught, but with more depth. Teachers would have enough time to develop concepts for good teaching and to look after individual students.
German problem: social origin
One problem persists in Germany: educational success still often depends on which family a child comes from. The differences between socially privileged and disadvantaged young people have even increased since 2015.
This is not about a shortened debate about migration, warns Samuel Greiff: The crucial dividing line is not between young people with and without an immigration history, but between children from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds. In natural sciences, for example, young people from privileged backgrounds do significantly better.
England shows that countermeasures can be taken. Schools there receive additional resources for children from difficult social backgrounds and can decide for themselves how they use them. Disadvantaged children have significantly better opportunities there than in Germany.
There are ideas for better schools
But there are also positive approaches in Germany, says Greiff, such as the StartChances program: It is intended to provide targeted support to around 4,000 schools with difficult social conditions over ten years. The federal and state governments are providing 20 billion euros for this.
According to Greiff, there is no shortage of possible solutions: support children earlier, recognize difficulties more quickly, and provide more support to schools in difficult situations. The problem lies primarily in implementation, i.e. anchoring successful approaches in the education system across the board and in the long term.
The crucial question after 25 years of PISA is therefore less what Germany could do. But whether it is possible to permanently implement the existing knowledge in everyday school life.
