The latest PISA results should force Malta to have an honest conversation about the state of our education system. Not a political shouting match. Not another exercise in presenting every statistic in the most favourable possible light. And certainly not propaganda.
The OECD's PISA 2025 results give us something much more valuable, a clear warning that Malta must improve the quality of education our children receive.
The figures are sobering.
In mathematics, only 56% of Maltese 15-year-olds reached the minimum Level 2 proficiency, compared with 65% across the OECD. In reading, the figure falls to just 52%, compared with an OECD average of 69%. In science, 63% reached at least Level 2, against 74% across the OECD.
These are not abstract numbers. Behind every percentage is a young person who will soon leave compulsory education and enter further education, training or the world of work.
We should also be concerned about the direction of travel.
The OECD reports that Malta's average 2025 results were lower than in 2022 in mathematics, reading and science. More seriously, performance in reading and science was below that recorded in any assessment before 2022. Since 2015, the proportion of low-performing students has increased by 15 percentage points in mathematics, 12 percentage points in reading and four percentage points in science.
That cannot simply be explained away.
Nor should we pretend that the answer is to change the narrative around the numbers. The responsibility of government is not to make disappointing results sound better. It is to understand why they are happening and act.
I believe our starting point must be simple: our children deserve an education system that aims for excellence, not merely adequacy.
The results show that we have a particular challenge in raising the number of students who achieve basic proficiency, while also increasing the number who reach the highest levels.
Only 5% of Maltese students were top performers in science, compared with 7% across the OECD. In mathematics, just 5% reached the highest proficiency levels, against 8% across the OECD. In reading, only 2% were top performers, compared with 6% across the OECD.
We need to ask why.
Are we giving educators the resources and support they need? Are we identifying children who are falling behind early enough? Are our curricula sufficiently ambitious? Are we teaching children not simply to memorise information, but to read critically, reason mathematically, solve problems and apply knowledge? And are we giving our best students enough opportunities to excel?
These questions matter because education policy cannot be reduced to buildings, announcements or slogans.
Curricula should be updated to reflect the needs of today's students. We should do our utmost to ensure that our students develop into critical thinkers.
The OECD data also tells us that resources and the learning environment remain important. In Malta, 31% of students were in schools where principals reported that instruction was hindered, at least to some extent, by a shortage of teaching staff. Meanwhile, 43% were in schools where principals perceived physical infrastructure shortages as hindering instruction.
We should also recognise what Malta is doing comparatively well. The socio-economic gap in science performance is smaller than the OECD average, and disadvantaged Maltese students are, in some respects, showing considerable academic resilience. But we should not use those positive findings as an excuse for complacency. The challenge before Malta is to raise the performance of the whole system.
As a nation, we need to reflect seriously on the state of this vital sector and chart a way forward that serves the common good.
That requires a long-term national strategy: stronger foundational literacy and numeracy; greater support for teachers and educators; early intervention for pupils who are struggling; ambitious standards for every school; better use of assessment data; stronger vocational and practical pathways; and a serious approach to digital and AI literacy.
Above all, it requires political honesty.
We should never be embarrassed to compare ourselves with other countries. PISA exists precisely so that education systems can learn from one another, and international comparison can help us identify both strengths and areas where improvement is needed. At the same time, such comparisons need to be approached critically. PISA measures particular aspects of learning through standardised assessments and cannot, on its own, capture the full complexity or quality of an education system. Its methodology, cultural assumptions and the tendency to reduce results to international league tables have also attracted legitimate scholarly criticism. That caution, however, should not become an excuse for complacency or for dismissing uncomfortable findings.
The PN is willing to make its contribution through consultations on policies and strategies that affect the education sector.
The purpose of education is not to give a government a good press release.
It is to give every child the knowledge, skills, confidence and opportunities to build a better future.
The PISA results tell us that we are not there yet.
The answer is not propaganda.
The answer is a leap in quality.
And that should be the national objective, not to explain away mediocre results, but to make sure that the next generation of Maltese students has a genuinely world-class education.
Jerome Caruana Cilia, PN MP and Shadow Minister for Education and Citizenship