OECD’s PISA 2025 results were published on September 8, showing Danish 15-year-olds at their lowest recorded level in reading, mathematics and science.
The new figures landed on Tuesday, and DR reports that Danish students have never performed worse in the three subjects measured. According to DR, the results have been described both as alarming and as a full-blown catastrophe.
The Ministry of Children and Education states that Danish students scored 460 points in reading, 471 in mathematics and 478 in science. As noted by the ministry, these are the lowest levels ever measured for Denmark in the PISA series.
The ministry interprets the score changes as a drop of almost two learning years in reading and mathematics between 2015 and 2025. In science, the fall corresponds to one learning year. Denmark now sits around the OECD average in reading and science, and above it only in mathematics.
In a separate report, DR puts the decline since PISA 2022 at 29 points in reading, 18 in mathematics and 16 in science. In 2022, Denmark was above the OECD average in all three domains.
According to TV2 Nyheder, about 29 percent of Danish students in reading, 28 percent in mathematics and 25 percent in science are classified as low-performing. That share has roughly doubled over the past decade. Students in this group may struggle to function fully in society.
Two decades of PISA-driven policy
DR notes that PISA has shaped the Danish folkeskole since the first results in 2001. Those figures showed that Danish children were weaker in reading, mathematics and science than widely assumed. Danish students placed mid-table and far behind Finland.
Denmark then asked the OECD to review its school system, and a larger study with recommendations followed in 2004. In 2006, the Folketing decided to introduce national tests in the folkeskole. Politicians and school staff also traveled to Finland and to Ontario in Canada for inspiration.
The Canadian model helped shape the 2014 folkeskole reform, with clearer learning goals and more focus on academic progress. School researcher Andreas Rasch-Christensen of VIA University College tells DR that the reform reflected impatience after years of PISA debate. He adds that the idea of copying one country’s system has since fallen out of favor.
Results began falling again after the reform, and in 2022 mathematics scores hit the lowest level then measured in Denmark. At that presentation, then education minister Mattias Tesfaye of the Social Democrats said he hoped for different slides in three years. Rasch-Christensen now describes the situation as an academic crisis in the Danish education system, pointing to the same trend in other school studies.
