Boyhood researcher: "We need to exercise our reading muscle"

PISA is an international student assessment that measures the knowledge of 15-year-old students by having them take the same test. 

The assessment is conducted by the OECD and includes 79 countries. 

The goal is to evaluate and compare education systems by testing students' knowledge levels and ability to apply what they have learned. 

The latest PISA assessment from 2022 showed declining results for students in all Nordic countries compared to previous assessments.

In mathematics, the largest decline was in Iceland (36 points) and Norway (33 points), while the smallest was in Denmark (20 points). 

In reading comprehension, the largest decline was in Iceland (38 points) and Finland (30 points), while the smallest was in Denmark (12 points).

Performance in science also dropped significantly.

The issue was discussed at the Nordic Council's session in the autumn of 2024, which called for an international expert committee to identify improvements. 

According to the Nordic Council, literacy and vocabulary require special attention in today's multimedia environment, as these factors influence all learning and academic outcomes.

The council also questioned how relevant PISA results were for measuring 15-year-old students' ability to face future challenges. Are reading, mathematics, and science the only relevant benchmarks?

The 2022 assessment also measured students' creative thinking. Here, Danish and Finnish students performed exceptionally well, according to the Nordic Council.