[Salon] Singapore and mainland China top global student assessment as OECD scores hit record low

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

Singapore and mainland China top global student assessment as OECD scores hit record low

Latest survey of 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies included new computational problem-solving module for AI era

SCMP

Carol Yangin Beijing

Published: 7:00pm, 11 Sep 2026

Singaporean and Chinese students led the world in educational performance in 2025, according to an assessment by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, as average scores across OECD countries reached a record low.

The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment comprised 760,000 15-year-old students across 91 countries and economies, including OECD members and partners.

This edition of the survey was the largest since the OECD first administered the triennial assessment in 2000.

In the report that OECD released on Tuesday, Singapore outpaced mainland China in reading with 535 points against China’s 527.

The city state also posted strong results in mathematics and science with 563 and 560 points, respectively – second only to China.

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Students from mainland China led globally in maths with 612 points and science with 597 points, vastly outperforming the OECD averages of 463 and 482 points, respectively.

The surveyed students from mainland China hailed from the country’s four eastern education powerhouses: the cities of Beijing and Shanghai, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

Mainland China is not an OECD member and did not take part in the OECD’s previous assessment because of coronavirus pandemic-related disruptions.

The 2025 edition expanded beyond reading, maths and science to debut a computational problem-solving module. It tested students’ ability to use programming tools, run experiments and design digital products.

Macau, a special administrative region of China, topped the new digital module with a score of 572. Singapore came second at 563, edging out mainland China’s 560 and well above the OECD average of 500.

Traditionally, Singapore and mainland China place a premium on strong school discipline, academic achievement and perseverance. Both are relatively strict in controlling digital distractions in the classroom compared with many Western systems.

Other top-performing education systems included Macau, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Hong Kong and Britain.

In contrast, American students posted mixed results. They scored 490 in reading – down 14 points from 2022 – and 463 in maths, similar to the 465 tallied three years ago. US science scores rose modestly to 502, with computational skills at 513.

At a global level, the results looked bleak. Compared with 2022, average OECD scores slid across the three mainstay subjects to varying degrees.

“The overall performance of OECD countries declined, with the lowest average levels of performance ever observed,” the report said.

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Across the OECD, one in five 15-year-old students is now a low performer in science, maths and reading, up from 16 per cent in 2022, according to the report.

Long-term data showed reading had declined since peaking around 2012, while maths fell sharply after 2018. Science performance has dipped more gradually over the past decade.

The report also highlighted a drop in skills critical for the artificial intelligence (AI) era, such as evaluating information, synthesising multiple sources and thinking critically.

And the proportion of “hasty readers” – students who rush through texts and give quick but incorrect answers – nearly doubled between 2018 and 2025.

Digital distraction in classrooms was identified as a major driver of the slump, with more than a quarter of OECD students reporting that peers were distracted by electronic devices during science lessons.

Meanwhile, the link between AI usage and academic performance was nuanced.

The 2025 data revealed that students who used AI for specific tasks such as drafting, summarising or research performed worse in science than non-users.

However, those who used AI for general learning and received AI literacy training at school scored slightly higher.

Mathias Cormann, OECD’s secretary general, said the data showed that “reversing declines in student performance is urgent”.

Technology and AI must be used purposefully rather than as “a substitute for attention, effort and understanding”, he added.

Carol Yang

Carol joined the Post in January 2025 and covers the China's economy and diplomacy. Before this role, she worked for shipping media outlet Lloyd’s List in Shanghai and the