Irish students best performers in reading literacy in OECD and EU

The 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report has found that Ireland’s 15-year-olds rank first in both the EU and the OECD for reading literacy and second among the 81 states surveyed.

Reading literacy

Students in Ireland achieved a mean reading literacy score of 516 from PISA, an OECD education project. This score exceeds the OECD average by 40 points and only one country – Singapore, noted as “significantly higher” – recorded a higher score. Four states – Japan, the Republic of Korea, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), and Estonia – recorded scores that “did not differ significantly” from Ireland’s and 75 states recorded scores significantly lower than Ireland’s.

Ireland’s 2022 mean reading score is 2.1 points lower than its 2018 score, although this is said to be “not statistically significant”, especially set against an OECD average of a 10.3-point decline in the same period. The percentage of students in Ireland performing at the lowest levels of reading literacy (11.4 per cent) is less than half of the OECD average of 26.3 per cent, while the proportion performing at the highest level (10.3 per cent) also outperforms the OECD average of 7.2 per cent.

Female students “significantly outperformed” their male counterparts in reading literacy testing, a pattern that was repeated in all but two (China and Costa Rica) of the states surveyed. However, the gender difference in Ireland was reduced from 23.2 point in 2018 to 18.3 points in 2022, meaning that Ireland once again outperforms the OECD average of 24.2 points. Ireland’s gender gap in reading literacy is more pronounced at the lower rung of scores; 14 per cent of males perform below baseline level compared to 8 per cent of females, while 11.2 per cent of females achieve the highest proficiency levels, in comparison with 9.4 per cent of males.

Mathematics

Students in Ireland ranked 11th overall in mathematics, a placement 10 places higher than 2018. Ireland also ranks seventh among OECD member states, and third among EU member states. The mean score of 491.6 achieved outperformed the OECD average of 472.4, with nine states said to have performed significantly higher than Ireland, eight states said to have not differed significantly from Ireland in their performance, and 63 states said to have performed significantly less well.

The mean score of 491.6 is “a significant” 8.0 points lower than Ireland’s 2018 score, although even this significant decrease is less than the decrease of 14.9 points in the OECD mean score; 41 of the 72 states surveyed that can compare 2018 and 2022 results showed decreases in their mean mathematics score, with “many cases” showing drops of over 20 points. 19 per cent of students in Ireland performed at the lowest levels of proficiency in mathematics, a rate significantly lower than the OECD average of 31.1 per cent and only bettered by seven states. However, just 7.2 per cent of Irish students performed at the highest levels, a proportion lower than the OECD average of 8.7 per cent that is bettered by 28 states.

Male students outperformed their female counterparts by almost 13 points in Ireland, a rate that is larger than the OECD average, with males outperforming females by 9.1 points internationally. The results show little difference between males and females performing below baseline proficiency – 18.5 per cent and 19.6 per cent respectively – but males are significantly more likely than females to reach the highest level of proficiency, with the OECD recording a rate of 9.6 per cent in comparison with the female rate of 4.7 per cent.

Science

Ireland’s students rank 12th overall in their performance in science, an improvement that sees them climb the rankings by 10 places when compared to 2018. Ireland also ranks eighth among OECD member states and third among EU member states. The mean score of 503.8 recorded by Ireland is significantly higher than the OECD average of 484.6. Nine states are said to have performed significantly higher than Ireland, eight did not significantly differ, and 63 performed significantly worse.

The mean score of 503.8 is 7.7 points higher than Ireland’s score in 2018; while science scores were said to have remained broadly stable, the OECD average did record a drop of 2.4 points. Ireland recorded 15.6 per cent of student performing beneath baseline proficiency in science, a rate much lower than the OECD average of 24.5 per cent and one only bettered by eight states. Ireland’s rate of students performing at the highest level in science was exactly in line with the OECD average, 7.5 per cent. This rate shows improvement from 2018, when a decrease from 2015 was recorded, meaning that Ireland’s 2022 rate has now realigned with its 2015 rate.

There was no significant gender difference recorded in overall science performance in Ireland. Although male students achieved a higher mean science score than their female counterparts, the gap of 5.6 points is deemed “not statistically significant”. In its report, Education in a Dynamic World: the performance of students in Ireland in PISA 2022, the Educational Research Centre states that it is “noteworthy” that there was an increase of about 11 points for males in science on average, but no significant change among females. 16.1 per cent of males and 15 per cent of females were found to be performing under baseline proficiency, while 9.5 per cent of males and 5.5 of females reached the top levels of proficiency.