PhilStar-Sept 10
Filipino students of every background achieved better reading scores in the 2025 PISA than in 2022. But scores climbed almost three times higher among the richest demographic of students than the poorest. The 2025 PISA results, released Tuesday, September 8, show that the Philippines was the only country in the world where the gap in reading improvement between the wealthiest and poorest students grew wider over the past three years, as elsewhere it narrowed or stayed the same. Reading scores among the wealthiest quarter of Filipino students who took the PISA rose by 41 points from 376 to 417 between 2022 and 2025. Among the poorest, however, the improvement was only by 15 points. This 26-point difference in both groups’ reading improvements was the largest of any country with comparable data in the 2025 PISA, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which oversees the PISA. This comes as the Philippines recorded its best PISA results since it first took the test in 2018. The Philippines is the only country in the world where a disparity between reading gains widened among “top” and “bottom” quarter students, according to the OECD. From its 2018 debut, the Philippines’ reading scores have jumped by 20 points overall, the steepest improvement of any country with comparable data. But that national average also masks how unevenly the gains were shared, upon closer study of the reading scores and socio-economic data. “The socio-economic gap in reading performance decreased in 37 countries and economies… The gap increased only in the Philippines; in the remaining countries and economies, the socio-economic gap in reading did not change,” the PISA 2025 report read. In most of the 91 territories that participated in PISA 2025, the socio-economic divide between the “top” and “bottom” quarter in reading has narrowed, according to the OECD. But the OECD warned against reading this as evidence that countries are creating a fairer playing field for students. A narrowing gap could also mean wealthier students are slipping while poorer students are not significantly improving. “A shrinking socio-economic gap does not necessarily mean a fairer system,” the PISA 2025 report read. So, what explains the gap in reading improvements in the Philippines? Did wealthier Filipino students simply pull ahead? Philstar’s reading of the PISA scores shows that the Philippines was beaten by Albania in terms of reading improvement of its wealthiest quarter of students. Albania’s “top” quarter of students gained a whopping 56 points in reading compared to their 2022 scores, much higher than the Philippines’ 41-point improvement. But Albania’s “bottom” quarter also rose 44 points, nearly keeping pace with the reading improvements of the top quarter, so its gap barely moved. In the Philippines, the lowest-income group of students only increased their average reading score by 15 points, rising from 324 to 338. The Philippines is the only country in the world where a disparity between reading gains widened among “top” and “bottom” quarter students, according to the OECD. The difference in reading scores between the poorest and wealthiest Filipino students has varied throughout the country’s three PISA cycles. In 2018, it stood at 88 points, narrowed to 52 in 2022, and then widened again to 78 in 2025. This means that since the Philippines first joined in 2018, like other countries, students in its top socio-economic quarter are improving their reading skills much faster than their peers in the bottom quarter. Read more at:
