Colombia remains far behind in educational quality, according to the latest results of the Pisa 2025 tests from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), revealed today. This is one of the most important tests worldwide, which on this occasion measured 15-year-old students from 91 countries around the world.
The data shows that although, according to the OECD, “the average results of 2025 in Colombia were approximately the same as in 2022,” the country dropped its performance in two of the three competencies measured by the tests (Reading and Mathematics), and had a very slight improvement in Science. In any case, it remains well below the average of OECD countries in all three competencies.
Thus, the most concerning case is Reading, where the worst decline occurred. In this competency, which according to Pisa test experts is perhaps the most important, Colombia obtained an average of 399 points. This implies a decrease compared to the previous edition (2022), when the average was 409, and it moves even further away from the best historical score obtained by the country, in 2015, which was 425. It is worth remembering that in Pisa there is no maximum score a student can achieve.
In this subject, the national performance was much lower than the OECD average (461), and that of the best country in the region, which was Chile, with 436 points. The difference with the best country in Reading (Singapore) is vast: 535.
Romina Durán, head of Research at the Institute of Educational Evidence, stated that “in the regional comparison, it ranks below Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Brazil, but above Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. The most worrying sign is that, while other domains show greater stability, reading declines: Colombia thus shares a widespread problem in the region, but with a significant drop that deserves specific attention.”
What happened with Mathematics is also concerning, which although had a slight drop of two points, remains the worst performing subject in the country, dropping from a score of 383 in 2022 to 381 in 2025. Historically, this has been the competency with the lowest results among Colombian students. Its best level was achieved in 2018, when it scored 391.
Compared to the rest of the world, Colombia is far below the OECD average (463) and the country with the best results in the world, which was the Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang region in China (B-S-J-Z, by its English initials). Due to its population size, China does not have a single measurement but is divided by regions. At the Latin American level, the best result was obtained by Uruguay, with 405 points.
The only competency that showed improvement, and in fact is the best performing one, is Science, where Colombians reached 414 points, three points more than in 2022. This is the second-best historical level, only below the 418 of 2015. Despite this, the country still performs poorly compared to the rest of the world. The average of OECD countries in Science was 482, while the best score was for the B-S-J-Z region (597 points). At the Latin American level, Uruguay was again the most outstanding, with 445.
No minimum learning
But beyond the scores, the Pisa tests analyze the real learning that students have in these three competencies. For this, the results are classified into seven performance levels: 1b (the lowest), 1a, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (the highest). Additionally, level 2 is established as the minimum standard expected for a student to achieve, which implies that they have the minimum learning they should have for their age.
When looking in detail at the performance levels of Colombian students, the outlook is more discouraging. For example, in Mathematics, the percentage of students who did not reach level 2 was 71 percent, meaning that seven out of ten 15-year-olds in the country do not reach the minimum learning expected for their age in this knowledge area. This is concerning considering that in OECD countries this percentage was only 35 percent.
In contrast, almost no student (less than 1 percent) reached levels 5 and 6 (the highest), while in OECD countries that percentage is 8 percent.
In the other competencies, the situation is also not good (see chart). In Reading, the percentage of students who did not reach the minimum level was 55 percent (in the OECD it was 31 percent). This means that the number of students with very low performance increased by 12 percentage points in ten years, since in 2015 it was 43 percent. Likewise, only 1 percent reached level 5, while the global average was 6 percent.
In Science, which theoretically has the most encouraging results, 1 in 2 students does not reach the minimum learning level (in the OECD this figure is 26 percent), and barely 1 percent had outstanding performance (far from the 7 percent averaged globally).
An urgent call
The reduction in scores and this stagnation in learning during the 2025 edition of the Pisa tests reveals a negative outlook for the educational system. And although this phenomenon was experienced in the 2022 edition, at that time it was expected that there would be no improvements due to the impact of the pandemic on the education sector. For some analysts consulted by EL TIEMPO, however, we are really seeing the impacts of the lockdown.
Educational analyst Francisco Cajiao explains it this way: “The 2022 results were very immediate to the pandemic, so many of the kids who were the age to take the PISA test had already acquired certain skills. In this case, we are talking about kids who suffered the pandemic during a critical learning period, which are the early years of schooling. That is very interesting because it is very likely that the true effect of the pandemic will be seen in these tests and not so much in the previous ones.”
However, Cajiao was also emphatic in pointing out that, beyond the pandemic, the fact that other countries in the region improved their results, as happened with Chile and Uruguay, shows that the Colombian educational system experienced a serious neglect in recent years: “We are talking about four years in which the government really did very little for the quality of basic education. During the entire Gustavo Petro period, great emphasis was placed on higher education, but there was really very little intervention in improving the quality of basic and secondary education, and this is felt and now evidenced.”
For her part, the head of Research at the Institute of Educational Evidence, Romina Durán, maintains that although performance stagnated in the three competencies, the country must make a greater effort especially in Reading: “The challenge is not only to recover what was lost but to guarantee reading competencies that are even more important today for learning, evaluating information, and navigating a world shaped by technology and artificial intelligence.”
Finally, Cajiao argues that the consequences for the country of poor educational quality results can be devastating: “In a country where the population does not have the necessary formative competencies, it is very difficult to make progress in science and technology, it is very difficult to have processes of technological development appropriation, it is very difficult to find qualified people to perform in high public responsibility positions. Less prepared people are much less productive and that means a tremendous setback for the country. The most valuable resource a country has is its people, but its prepared people. If people do not have the necessary levels, they also cannot enter university and when they enter university it is more likely they will drop out before completing a degree.”
Bullying and cyberbullying above average
Beyond learning results, the OECD Pisa report also reveals other aspects of school systems worldwide, including school climate. Among the indicators in this regard, one of the most striking is bullying and cyberbullying, where Colombia does not fare well.
According to the report, in the country 20.7 percent of students reported having suffered some type of school bullying. In other words, 1 in 5 students states having been bullied at their school. This figure is slightly above the average of OECD countries, which is 19.6 percent.
When asked about the main bullying mechanisms they were victims of, 13.4 percent of Colombian students said that unpleasant rumors were spread about them, this being the main bullying mechanism, followed by teasing (10.7 percent), hitting or pushing (4.3 percent), distribution of offensive material on the internet (3.6 percent), and threats (3.4 percent).
Regarding cyberbullying, Pisa analysts say that although it is relatively uncommon compared to other forms of school bullying, its victims tend to experience significant deficits in performance associated with this type of aggression.
In Colombia, 4 percent of students reported that disturbing information about them was published online, without their consent, at least a few times a month during the 12 months prior to the Pisa test (the OECD average for this indicator was 3 percent).
For the researchers behind the report, it is evident that this type of online aggression has a direct impact on test performance. Students who were victims of cyberbullying scored, on average, 39 points less in Science than their peers.
Another indicator measured in the report is school absenteeism. This is because a student with lower academic performance or a victim of school bullying is more prone to frustration and, therefore, to dropping out of school.
In 2025, according to the report, around 30 percent of Colombian students reported having missed at least one day of school in the two weeks prior to the test. This is higher than the OECD average, which was 22 percent. Likewise, 19 percent reported having missed at least one class (OECD average: 24 percent).
MATEO CHACÓN ORDUZ | Deputy Editor Vida de Hoy – Education
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