Filipino 15-year-olds just turned in their strongest showing yet on the world’s biggest school test, climbing out of the bottom 10 for the first time since the Philippines joined the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment in 2018.
What the 2025 PISA scores say
The Philippines posted its highest-ever marks across all three subjects tested in PISA 2025, released Tuesday, Sept. 8. In science it scored 373, up 17 points from 2022; in mathematics 371, up 16; and in reading 367, up 20 points.
The reading gain alone is roughly equivalent to a year of schooling by the OECD’s rule of thumb, which treats 20 points as one year of learning. On the OECD’s trend chart, the Philippines sits at the very top of the positive-reading column, ahead of Cambodia, Turkiye and Brunei, while Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States all registered declines. The OECD describes the country as the fastest-improving nation in reading comprehension.
Why this is a milestone
In its first PISA cycle in 2018, the Philippines ranked last of 79 countries in reading and second-lowest in mathematics and science. In 2022 it placed sixth-lowest in math and reading and third-lowest in science among 81 education systems. This round it has escaped the flatline it showed across its first two participations.
| Subject | PH score 2025 | Change vs 2022 | OECD average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Science | 373 | +17 | 482 |
| Mathematics | 371 | +16 | 463 |
| Reading | 367 | +20 | 461 |
The sobering part
Despite the record improvement, the gap to the OECD average remains wide: Filipino students are 109 points behind in science, 94 in reading and 92 in mathematics, a lag the OECD puts at between four and five years of schooling. Some 64.3% of Filipino students still scored below Level 2, the threshold the OECD treats as the minimum for participating in everyday economic and social life, while only 0.3% reached the top Level 5 or 6 bands.
Part of the leap reflects a decline elsewhere: OECD averages fell across all three subjects this cycle, by 15 points in reading, nine in mathematics and three in science, with overall reading scores seeing the steepest drop in the program’s history.
Where the Philippines fits globally
PISA 2025 assessed more than 760,000 students across 91 countries and economies, representing about 33 million 15-year-olds. The top performers were the Chinese jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Singapore, with Estonia, Japan, Korea, Macao, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom rounding out the top 10. The report also flagged a new focus area, with a large share of students potentially vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation.
The result gives the Department of Education a concrete benchmark as it pushes reading and numeracy programs. Astig.ph has previously tracked both the billions needed to rebuild storm-hit classrooms and how some schools are rethinking classrooms to keep learning going.
