THE Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap) is alarmed by findings from the OECD's Pisa 2025 country note for Malaysia.
Our conclusion is that the mathematics result reflects how Malaysia’s education policy has been designed since 2023, and that achieving the government's own 2030 target is only possible if three instruments are put in place now.
The 2025 report found that Malaysia's 15-year-olds scored 397 in mathematics, 393 in reading and 419 in science. Mathematics has fallen in both cycles since 2018, by 43 points in total, and is now below the 404 recorded in Malaysia's first participation, the Pisa 2009+ round administered in 2010. Sixty-five per cent of students fell short of Level 2, the baseline for applying mathematics to an everyday situation, against 35 per cent across the OECD.
Students at Level 5 or 6, the level the OECD associates with modelling complex situations mathematically, were 0.6 per cent of the cohort, against 8 per cent.
Where the education policy design has failed
The Education Ministry’s own analysis of TIMSS 2023, released in December 2024, found that students lacked basic mathematics concepts from primary to secondary.
Since then the government has set a target in the 13th Malaysia Plan (tabled on 31 July 2025) of Pisa and TIMSS performance at par with the international average by 2030, launched the Rancangan Pendidikan Malaysia 2026 to 2035 (on 20 January 2026) with a mandatory grade C target and a centrally administered Matriks Pembelajaran from 2026, and on Sept 8, 2026 cited a 10-year Mathematics Education Transformation Plan.
It is Insap's view that this approach by the Madani administration has three design flaws that prevent it from achieving its objectives and must be addressed immediately.
First, there is no annual feedback loop against the target to test its effectiveness. The Ministry's own Educational Policy Planning and Research Division director told the results press conference that Malaysia aims to reach the OECD average in the next cycle.
In mathematics that means closing a gap of 66 points, from 397 to the OECD average of 463, when the OECD treats 20 points as roughly one year of schooling. The Matriks Pembelajaran is a pupil-level diagnostic with no commitment yet to publish national results on a comparable scale, and TIMSS 2027 is expected to report only at the end of 2028. As a result, the 2030 target itself will be tested only once, by Pisa 2029, with results coming out in 2030.
Second, there is no cohort logic. The students who will be tested for Pisa 2029 are in Year 6 and Form 1 today. Unless the 10-year plan is frontloaded for this cohort, and nothing published so far says it is, it will reach them only after their secondary mathematics has already been formed.
Third, the school targets are not connected to the national talent targets. Every national ambition in artificial intelligence and chip design is an ambition in applied mathematics.
The National Semiconductor Strategy commits Malaysia to 60,000 highskilled engineers by 2030, and Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry (Miti) told the Dewan Rakyat in November 2025 that 13,679 had been trained and deployed since launch, under programmes that include upskilling of engineers already at work.
The Pisa sample represents about 413,000 15-year-olds, of whom roughly 2,500 performed at that level. No published document reconciles the industrial target with the measured capability of the cohorts expected to fill it.
TalentCorp's Critical Occupations List 2024/2025 lists 66 hard-to-fill occupations across 18 sectors, engineering roles prominent among them, and at a recent semiconductor talent roundtable, industry participants were consistent that the shortage lies in engineers who can diagnose an unfamiliar problem and in experienced hires, and less in the number of certified graduates.
That is the competence Pisa measures at Level 5 and 6. The deficit employers meet at 22 is already visible at 15. The same OECD note shows that the binding constraint sits in policy design.
Teacher supply is adequate by international standards: only 18 per cent of students are in schools reporting a shortage of teaching staff, against 39 per cent across the OECD. Thailand, which trailed Malaysia in every subject in 2022, gained significantly in all three subjects within a single cycle, the same three years in which Malaysia's fell further.
The Philippines, from a lower base, did the same.
Insap’s proposals
First, establish an annual national proficiency indicator. The Education Ministry has described the Matriks Pembelajaran as a diagnostic tool and as preparation for TIMSS and PISA. From 2027, when the Form 3 Matriks begins, it should carry a sampled set of Pisa-style application items, scaled so that a national proficiency estimate is published every year.
The OECD's own Pisa for Schools instrument, already in use elsewhere and now being adopted by the Philippines, offers a ready-made basis, subject to agreement with the OECD.
Second, a joint cohort pipeline report starting from 2027, built from data that already exist in separate hands: PISA and the Matriks at the Education Ministry, the Graduate Tracer Study at the Higher Education Ministry, the Critical Occupations List at TalentCorp and the NSS talent count at Miti.
It would follow each cohort from Form 3 proficiency through science stream take-up and pre-university enrolment to engineering intake and graduate output, set against the NSS and RMK13 targets. The country would then see where the talent pipeline leaks.
Third, cohort-sequenced implementation of the mathematics plan. The first two years should concentrate teacher deployment, materials and remediation on Year 6 to Form 2 mathematics, so that the 2029 cohort is reached in 2026 to 2028.
With these in place, the Ministry would know within a year whether the mathematics plan is working and could correct course before 2029. Thailand's and the Philippines' single-cycle gains show that movement is possible. Without them, the 2030 target remains merely a statement of intent with no instrument to track or deliver it.
DATUK DR PAMELA YONG
Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap) Chairman
