PISA 2025: nearly half of Latvian ninth-graders struggle to understand what they read

The latest round of the OECD's PISA study, released this autumn, has once again triggered debate in Latvia about the quality of its education system — a discussion that recurs every three years when new results are published. The 2025 survey included nearly 7,000 fifteen-year-olds from 268 schools, with the data representing roughly 17,700 students of that age nationwide, most of them in ninth grade.

Mixed results

Latvian students scored above the OECD average in computer-based problem solving, while math results matched the OECD average. On a positive note, a notably higher-than-average share of students from lower-income families managed to reach top-tier science scores compared with the OECD average — a sign of relatively resilient educational equity.

Reading, however, tells a different story. Scores have fallen in every cycle since 2015, dropping a total of 51 points over the decade to just 430 points in 2025, well below the OECD average of 461. Only 59% of students reach the minimum reading proficiency level, meaning roughly two in five young people cannot fully grasp even a relatively simple text.

Language and contextual factors

For the first time, testing in 2025 was conducted only in Latvian, and a significant gap emerged between students who speak Latvian at home and those who don't, particularly in reading and science. The results were also shaped by a decade of continuous education reforms and by pandemic-era disruptions — Latvian schools were closed longer than those in neighboring Lithuania and Estonia.

Roots trace back to primary school

A separate international study shows the reading decline was already visible earlier: fourth-grade reading scores fell by 30 points between 2016 and 2021, and those same children are now the ninth-graders who sat the 2025 PISA test. This suggests support needs to start in the earliest school years, rather than waiting until problems become difficult to reverse.

Experts caution against placing blame solely on teachers or parents, arguing that systemic support — including libraries and after-school programs — is needed. Parents are encouraged to talk with their children more often, asking not just how school went but what they think about what they learned, to help build vocabulary and the ability to reason and comprehend texts.