Why did Korean 15-year-olds' reading scores fall in the OECD PISA 2025 report?

An education ministry official said it is difficult to identify a single cause for lower reading scores worldwide. The official said factors such as students’ motivation and attitude toward reading appear to have been affected by increased use of digital and social media.

How did Korea's reading ranking change in the OECD PISA 2025 assessment?

Korea's reading score placed it in a rank range of third to 13th, compared with second to 12th in the 2022 assessment. The report uses rank ranges rather than a single position because of the margin of error.

What were Korea's mathematics and science results in the OECD PISA 2025 report?

Korean students' average mathematics score fell from 527 to 522, and science dropped from 528 to 526. The report said both declines were statistically negligible.

Korean 15-year-olds' reading ability drops considerably over past 3 years: report

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Summary

Korean 15-year-olds’ reading ability dropped significantly over the last three years, an OECD report showed Tuesday, with officials partly linking the decline to heavier use of digital and social media. The average reading score fell to 501 from 515 in 2022. Korea’s reading rank range slipped to third to 13th from second to 12th. The report also showed small, statistically negligible declines in mathematics and science.

Key Facts

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment 2025 covered about 760,000 students in 91 countries, including 38 OECD member states.
In Korea, the assessment was conducted on 6,859 students at 196 schools.
The report said Korea's average reading score was 501, down 14 points from the 2022 assessment.
Korea's reading rank range changed from second to 12th in 2022 to third to 13th in 2025.
Korean students' average scores in mathematics and science fell from 527 to 522 and from 528 to 526, respectively, with the report describing both declines as statistically negligible.

By Yonhap

Published Sep 8, 2026 6:12 pm KST

A student browses books at a large bookstore in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap

Korean 15-year-olds' reading ability dropped significantly over the last three years, an OECD report showed Tuesday, likely partly due to the increased use of digital and social media.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment 2025, the cohort's average reading score was 501, down 14 points from the previous assessment in 2022.

The latest assessment was conducted over three years involving approximately 760,000 students in 91 countries, including 38 OECD member states.

It aims to assess and compare 15-year-olds' skills in reading, mathematics and science across countries, and has been carried out every three years, though the next editions will be released every four years.

In Korea, the latest assessment was conducted on 6,859 students at 196 schools.

The reading score ranked the country third to 13th, compared with second to 12th in 2022. The report assigns ranking ranges to each country instead of a single rank in consideration of the margin of error.

"It is difficult to identify a single cause for lower reading scores across the world," an education ministry official said, referring to findings that Singapore, the top-ranked country in both 2022 and 2025, also saw a decline from 543 to 535 in the same period.

Japan, meanwhile, retreated from 516 points in 2022 to 503 in 2025.

"It appears that a combination of things, such as (students') motivation and attitude toward reading, were affected by the increased use of digital and social media," the official said.

Korean students' average scores in mathematics and science also fell over the three-year period, but the decline was statistically negligible — from 527 to 522 in mathematics and from 528 to 526 in science — the report showed.

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