PISA 2025 results show declining student performance in Serbia and Croatia

The 2025 PISA test results indicate a decline in educational performance for 15-year-old students in Serbia and Croatia across key subjects including mathematics, reading, and science.

In Serbia, average scores in all three areas were lower than in 2022, 2018, and 2012, remaining below the OECD average. The proportion of students failing to reach basic functional literacy (level 2) increased significantly since 2018, rising by 13 percentage points in mathematics and 10 in reading. The report noted that these results may have been influenced by widespread student and teacher strikes in the year preceding the testing.

In Croatia, reading literacy saw a sharp decline, dropping to 453 points—a loss of 22 points compared to previous cycles, which experts equate to a full grade level of regression. While Croatia's international ranking remained relatively stable due to poorer performance elsewhere, a significant gender gap was observed, with female students outperforming males by 47 points. Additionally, only 5% of Croatian students reached the highest levels of literacy required to distinguish fact from opinion.