Malaysian students’ Pisa scores drop in 2022

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia’s performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) 2022 had dropped compared to the score in 2018.

Education deputy director-general (School Operations) Azman Adnan said the drop is not unique to Malaysia as most other countries around the world also took a tumble.

"Malaysia's performance in Pisa 2022 has shown a decline in all three literacy measures assessed," he said when announcing the results at the Education Ministry here on Tuesday (Dec 5).

Three domains are assessed in Pisa - reading literacy, mathematics literacy and scientific literacy.

For the reading domain, which is the biggest in Pisa, Malaysia scored 388, a drop of 27 from 415 points in 2018, with less than 50% of our students reaching the minimum level (Level 2) for the domain.

In mathematics, our 15-year-olds had a score of 409 compared to 440 points while science also dropped 22 to 416 from 438 points.

Overall, 13 countries improved their Pisa score in the assessment, 58 dropped and two maintained their score.

The OECD scores in Pisa 2022 for reading, mathematics and science are 476 points, 472 points and 485 points respectively.

Pisa is administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) every three years on 15-year-olds in both OECD and non-OECD countries and offers students questions in the main language of instruction in their respective countries.

However, the last round was delayed from 2021 to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Each round focuses on either Reading, Mathematics or Science.

This international benchmark study helps measure how prepared 15-year-olds who underwent formal education are to fully integrate into modern society.