The OECD released PISA 2025 results in early 2026, testing 15-year-olds across 91 education systems in reading, mathematics, and science. The Philippines improved its scores in all three subjects — one of only eight systems globally to do so. It is a meaningful result. It is also, in context, a reminder of how much further there is to go.
The interactive data
The charts below show how Filipino 15-year-olds performed across all three PISA subjects — compared to the OECD average, to Southeast Asian neighbours, and across the full distribution of 90 participating systems. Use the subject tabs to switch between Science, Reading, and Mathematics.
What the improvement means
Between 2018 and 2025, the Philippines has raised its reading score by 27 points, science by 16 points, and mathematics by 18 points. Over the same period, the OECD average fell in all three subjects — a consequence of pandemic disruption that hit wealthier, higher-scoring systems hard. The Philippines, which was already in the tail of the distribution, had less far to fall and continued building from its base.
This means the gains are real but must be read carefully. The Philippines closed some of the gap to the OECD average not only because it improved, but because the OECD average moved downward. The absolute gap remains large: in science, the Philippines scores approximately 109 points below the OECD average and 224 points below the top-scoring system.
One number behind the average: 64.3% of Filipino 15-year-olds scored below Level 2 in science, reading, and mathematics — the threshold the OECD treats as the floor for meaningful participation in modern economic life. Across the OECD, that figure is 19.7%. At the top end, just 0.3% of Filipino students reached the highest performance levels in any subject. Across the OECD, 11.9% did.
A new domain: computational problem solving
PISA 2025 added a fourth graded domain alongside science, mathematics and reading. The OECD calls it Learning in the Digital World, and the part scored this year is computational problem solving: students were given a small programming environment and a simulation, and had to combine commands into working programs, run controlled experiments, and work out how the factors in a model relate to each other. Like the three core subjects it is reported on a scale with an OECD average of 500, but the proficiency ladder is set differently. The baseline is Level 3, not Level 2: at Level 3 a student can build a working program from several commands and run a basic controlled experiment to infer a simple relationship. Levels 5 and 6 describe students who can plan, test and debug efficient, error-free solutions to unfamiliar problems.
How the Philippines did: a mean of 434 points against an OECD average of 500, and 34% of students at or above the Level 3 baseline against 64% across the OECD. The top performer was Macao (China), at 572 points with 93% of students above baseline, followed by Singapore (563), B-S-J-Z (China) (560) and Japan (557). Across the OECD roughly a quarter of students reached Levels 5 or 6.
Two things stand out. First, the Philippine gap is narrower here than in the three core subjects: 66 points below the OECD average, compared with roughly 100 to 110 points in science, mathematics and reading. Second, this is the only PISA domain in which one in three Filipino students clears the OECD's own baseline. A second set of results from the same assessment, on how well students direct their own learning in a digital environment, is due in 2027.
What happened to creative thinking
Readers who followed our earlier coverage of the Philippines' bottom-four finish in creative thinking may look for an update here and not find one. That is by design on the OECD's side, not an omission. Each PISA cycle carries one rotating "innovative domain" in addition to the core subjects: global competence in 2018, creative thinking in 2022, and now Learning in the Digital World in 2025. Creative thinking was assessed once, in 2022, and was discontinued after that cycle; no creative-thinking score was produced in 2025 and none is scheduled. The 2022 result therefore remains the most recent international measure of Filipino students' creative thinking, and the country's standing in that skill cannot be read off the 2025 tables.
Southeast Asia: a wider spread than it looks
Among the eight Southeast Asian systems that participated in PISA 2025, the spread in scores is wider than across most of Europe. Singapore leads the world in reading and is second only to B-S-J-Z (China) in science and mathematics. Vietnam, which once performed well above its income level, has seen declining scores — its reading score fell sharply to 392 in 2025. The Philippines ranked above Cambodia and Indonesia in reading, and above Indonesia in mathematics, while remaining near the bottom of the regional and global distributions.
Why this matters for Malaya's work
The PISA improvement is evidence that the Philippines' public school system can deliver better outcomes — and that sustained effort, curriculum reform through MATATAG, and teacher development investments are beginning to register. The EDCOM II report identified these as the right levers. The data now offers early confirmation.
But the 2025 results also reinforce what drives Malaya Initiative Foundation's focus. The bottom-of-distribution performance in creative thinking — assessed in PISA 2022, and not re-tested since — points to the specific gap where Malaya concentrates: the higher-order skills of critical analysis, clear communication, and creative problem-solving that the aggregate scores do not fully capture, but that employers and civic life increasingly demand.
"The Philippines is gaining ground. The question is whether the pace of improvement matches the pace of change in the skills the economy and society need."
Sources: OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Results (Volume I): Future-Ready Students, Table I.1, and the OECD PISA trend series for earlier cycles. B-S-J-Z (China) stands for Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang — the four Chinese provinces and municipalities that took part in PISA 2025. They are tested and reported together as one education system, and their results represent those four regions only, not China as a whole. Prepared by the Malaya Initiative Foundation. Figures may be reproduced with attribution.