Portuguese 15-year-old students worsened their results in the PISA 2022 international Mathematics and Reading tests, reversing the trend of improvement that had been recorded over the last decade.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) once again analyzed the knowledge of Mathematics, Reading and Science of students around the world – in 2022 around 690,000 students from 81 countries and economies participated – and the portrait of student performance stands out. “an unprecedented breakup”, in which Portugal was no exception.
The almost seven thousand students from 224 Portuguese schools who took the 2022 tests obtained worse results than their peers in 2018, which places Portugal among the countries that fell the most in Mathematics, says the OECD report published this Tuesday.
“Compared to 2018, average performance fell ten points in Reading and almost 15 points in Mathematics, which is equivalent to three quarters of a year of learning,” highlights Mathias Cornmann, Secretary General of the OECD, in the introductory text of the report .
In Portugal, the results of the students were even more serious: the students obtained 472 points in Mathematics, that is, 20.6 points less than in the tests carried out in 2018. Compared to the results of the 2012 tests, they dropped 14 .6 points.
Portugal thus appears on the list of 19 countries that dropped Mathematics by more than 20 points, with grades falling among the most needy students, but also among the most privileged.
Three out of ten students failed to demonstrate that they had minimal knowledge in Mathematics, that is, they did not reach level two on a scale of six values.
Only 7% of Portuguese students stood out, reaching the highest levels of proficiency (5 and 6) in Mathematics, a subject that was once again dominated by six Asian countries.
Going through preschool education also seems to be synonymous with better performance. In Portugal, 95% of 15-year-old students attended preschool for one or more years. These students obtained better results in Mathematics than students who never attended preschool.
In Singapore, 41% of students demonstrated very high knowledge, as did 32% of students in Taiwan.
They were followed by students from Macau and China (29% with very good results), Hong Kong (27%), Japan (23%) and Korea (23%).
Socioeconomic status is one of the factors that most influences academic results and, in Portugal, Portuguese students from the most privileged families obtained an average score of 522 points, that is, 101 points above the average of the most disadvantaged students .
This difference in results is not far from the average of OECD countries (93 points), according to the study published this Tuesday, which looked for success stories among the most needy.
In Portugal, around 9% of disadvantaged students managed to be among the best students in Mathematics, with the OECD average being 10%.
Although PISA 2022 focuses more on portraying Mathematics knowledge, a Reading test was also carried out and, once again, the average results worsened: Portuguese students obtained 477 points, which represents a drop of 15.2 points compared to 2018 and 12.8 points compared to 2012. .
Despite the decline, 77% of Portuguese students managed to reach at least level two, above the OECD average (74%). This result means that these young people can at least identify the main ideas in a text of moderate length, find information, and reflect on the purpose and form of a text.
Only 5% of Portuguese people managed to obtain a level 5 or 6 in Reading (7% is the OECD average), a level that already implies being able to understand fairly extensive texts, handle abstract concepts well and be able to establish distinctions. between a fact and an opinion.
In the Science test, Portugal appears as a success story, counteracting the trend towards worsening results: in 2022 it obtained 484 points, only 7.3 points less than in 2018 and 2012.
The report indicates that 78% of students achieved at least level two (OECD is 76%). Among them, 5% obtained very good results (levels 5 and 6), which shows that they were able to creatively and autonomously apply their scientific knowledge in a variety of situations.
In a comparison between genders, Portuguese boys are once again better in Mathematics (plus 11 points) and girls in Reading (plus 21 points).
In the introductory text of the report, Mathias Cornmann warned that “one in four 15-year-olds is currently considered to be performing poorly in mathematics, reading and science on average across OECD countries.”
Source: TSF
