Education collided with the pandemic without any kind of safety cushion and the impact received in all countries, which the PISA 2022 report has now discovered, has meant a global slump. The young people who last year answered the tests of the Program for the Integral Student Assessment (PISA) at the age of 15 had two fewer when the schools closed to avoid contagion. They studied the equivalent of a 2nd year of ESO and in the current course, if they continue at the appropriate age for their level, they are already out of compulsory education in many countries, such as Spain.
PISA 2022 shows that the educational regression is very noticeable. “There is no precedent in the history of PISA for such a large loss of points between one edition and another”, explained yesterday the OECD analyst, Daniel Salinas, in a press conference at the Ministry of Education. Professional Training and Sports. The average result for all countries examined by PISA 2022 is 472 in mathematics (15 points less than in 2018), 476 in reading (10 less) and 485 in science (4). At the most the global average had fallen so far in a report 5 points.
PISA considers 20 points to be equivalent to an entire year of learning. Therefore, in mathematics they have gone back about nine months and in reading six. The fall has been distributed by zone. Asian countries have resisted (Singapore tops the list with a 100-point difference from the international dunk average). On the other hand, in Europe, with the exception of Estonia, the drop in this matter, as in the rest, is very pronounced: France (-21), Germany (-25), Belgium (-19), the Netherlands (-27) , Denmark (-20), Poland (-23), Sweden (-21), Norway (-33), and the usual admired Finland (-23).
Not everything is a pandemic. “There is evidence to suggest that covid simply intensified a negative trajectory that came from 2018,” said Salinas. Also the lack of capacity of educational systems to recover lost learning.
In this context, Spain, which was one of the countries that kept schools closed for the shortest time and managed the distribution of laptops, has lost less than all countries, which has allowed it to be placed in the international averages. “Not all of the fall can be explained by the pandemic”, José Manuel Bar, Secretary of State for Education agreed yesterday, but the pandemic has been critical”. Bar indicated that covid has brought positive lessons for the future, such as the need for equity, the reduction in segregation and the importance of emotional well-being.
Spain, in mathematics, scores 473, one point above the OECD. In reading, 474, two below the OECD. And in science it achieves the highest position, 485, the same as the average of developed countries. It is not that there is no downside, the generation will incur losses if it does not recover them in high school or VT, where they are supposed to be now, but it is smaller. Thus, Spanish students have lost the equivalent of a course in reading and a half in mathematics compared to 10 years ago.
In Catalonia, the collapse is evident, as other assessments have already confirmed. In seven years, the equivalent of 24 months in reading and 18 in maths and science has gone back. Castilla y León, Asturias, Cantabria, Galicia and Madrid (which is recovering from previous falls) are well placed. The Basque Country and Navarre, however, also collapse.
The main competence in this edition, which has been analyzed in more depth, is mathematics. If before the pandemic the mathematical competence in Spain did not improve significantly (its position fluctuated between 480 and 486 points, slightly below the average of the OECD countries), in 2022 it has dropped to 473 points, 8 points below in 2018 and 11 in 2012. With these figures, Spain is now at the level of Germany, France or Portugal.
In reading performance, Spain ranks 474, very similar to the average of the OECD (476) and the EU (475). However, this means a sharp drop compared to the averages obtained in 2015, of 22 points, and in 2012, of 14 points. In other words, the decline had occurred before. It is at the level of France and Norway, which in one edition have lost the equivalent of an entire course, Portugal or Germany.
With regard to science, Spanish students have lost the equivalent of half a year compared to what young people knew in 2012. Then, the average performance was 496. In the following edition they lost 3 points and in 2018, before the pandemic, the decline was 10 points. Post-pandemic, two points have been recovered. It contained the blow that countries like Japan (17 points) could not resist, which is in second place after Singapore, China, Taipei (22 points), the Netherlands (15), Finland (11 points) or Germany (11). However, the declines in the sciences seem to be smaller compared to those in the other fields of knowledge.
In Spain, as in most countries, on average, girls outperform boys in reading and, to a lesser extent, boys outperform girls in mathematics. However, gender differences are not significant in other areas. “It is not worth telling us that they are not the only ones”, pointed out Bar, “nor do we sin of complacency, although we note that our system has been resilient”. The Secretary of Education announced that measures will be implemented to reduce educational gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, equity will be improved, investment will be made in the application of competency curricula, the teaching career and the training of the faculty
