The Swedish Pisa results are at a historic low

Then the day had come again for one of the strongest bats in Swedish school debate – the results from the international Pisa measurement, which every three years shows 15-year-olds' skills in mathematics, science and reading comprehension. And it looks bad. Really bad.

The results show a broad decline in general in the OECD countries. In Sweden, the knowledge level in science is at the same level as in 2022, but in mathematics and reading comprehension the results have deteriorated since 2022, which then showed the same bottom results as in 2012.

Today's results report shows that the students have never performed so low in Pisa. A third of Swedish students do not reach a basic level of knowledge. But this is not enough, now even the student group with a favorable socio-economic background has deteriorated their results in all three subject areas.

The government probably hoped that the PISA 2025 results would go the other way. Especially in view of the high level of back-and-forth regarding the education policy pursued and the various investigations and changes in the law that have been made during the term of office. After the National Education Agency's account of the disastrous results, Education Minister Simona Mohamsson took the opportunity at the government's press conference to point out that PISA shows that "we are in the middle of a screen pandemic" and that the reform package that the government put forward with an investment in physical books in school to strengthen reading in school is absolutely crucial.

But that is not enough. The latest Pisa results also confirm what the National Education Agency's situational assessment from last spring showed, that the differences in results between student groups continue to increase in Swedish schools. This means that not all students get the same opportunities to succeed in life. Lack of study time and little access to learning materials, as well as fewer qualified and experienced teachers, are common in schools with many students from socio-economically weak backgrounds, the report shows.

School success in Sweden is a matter of class affiliation.

This bears repeating. The differences between different student groups are based on student composition – it is socio-economic background and residential segregation that play a role in school results, so does Pisa. That is to say: school success in Sweden is a matter of class affiliation.

New curriculum, more books in school, staffed school libraries and cell phone bans are of course necessary to reverse the trend, just as the Minister of Education says. But hopefully the Pisa result will make both politicians and voters see this red warning flag as part of a larger and much deeper problem. We have a society where today's children and young people, the adults of the future, are segregated into educational exclusion. It must be a priority for politics to do something about it.