Significant improvement in all education fields, but Turkey still below OECD average, PISA results show

ISTANBUL - Esra Ülkar

Turkey has ranked 31 out of 37 OECD countries and remained below the OECD average in all areas, according to a report released on Dec. 3 on the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.

Held by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), PISA ranked 15-year-old students from Turkey as 42nd in mathematics, 40th in reading skills and 39th in science among 79 countries and economies.

It assesses 15-year-old students across 79 countries in mathematics, reading and science, releasing performance reports on a country-by-country basis.

“The fact that we are one of the three countries that have increased their scores in all three areas within the OECD countries in PISA 2018 has been the most concrete indicator of success. As we reduce the success gap between our schools, our place in the list will increase. I would like to thank everyone who contributed,” Turkey’s education minister Ziya Selçuk said in a tweet.

The Turkish Education Ministry published on Dec. 3 a detailed evaluation report of the PISA 2018 results.

Significant improvement in all fields

Turkey, which had suffered from low PISA scores in 2015, recorded significant improvement in all three skills in 2018, according to the report.

Turkish students improved across all three tested disciplines, math, reading and science.

Turkey recorded a 10-point improvement in reading, eight points in math and 15 point in science skills in 2018 compared to 2015.

Turkey recorded the highest increase in mathematics and science scores in 2018 among 36 OECD countries.

Still below the OECD average

However, only 3 percent of Turkish students in the age group of 15 has a high level of reading skills, according to the results.

According to the PISA results, 63 percent of Turkish students could reach over second level in the field of math, while this rate is 76 percent in OECD average.

In all countries participating in PISA 2018, female students outperformed male students in reading skills. According to the OECD average, female students in the field of reading scored 30 points more than male students.

In Turkey, female students are 25 points ahead of male students in the field of reading.

Turkey has participated in PISA surveys held every three years since 2003.

A total of 79 countries participated in the 2018 PISA survey, while the number of countries was 72 in 2015.