The two faces of PISA: Rising success, persistent inequality

Turkey has made strong progress in the OECD's PISA 2025 study, which measures the capacity of 15-year-old students to use their knowledge and skills in real-life problems. It increased its scores in science, reading, and mathematics, climbing significant steps in the international rankings. While it surpassed the OECD average in science and reading, it caught up to the average in mathematics. Moreover, this success came at a time when student performance in many OECD countries has declined. 

It would be unfair to underestimate this picture. However, it would also be a major fallacy to look at the same picture and conclude that “we have overcome the problems in education.”

Because an increase in the average does not mean that every child is rising. While a country moves up in the rankings, disadvantaged students may be left behind; success may be concentrated in certain school types, regions, and socioeconomic groups. Therefore, the real issue is not just what rank we achieved, but who benefits from this success and who is still left behind.

This is where the real questions begin: What has changed? Who has progressed? Who has remained in the same place? Who is still left behind? To what extent do a family's income, where a child lives, and the school they attend continue to determine their future in education?

For an economist, the question is even more comprehensive: What does this picture we see in education today tell us about Turkey's equality of opportunity, tomorrow's human capital, productivity, income distribution, and development capacity?

Because a country's future is determined not only by its most successful children but also by the children it leaves behind. This is exactly where the aspect of PISA 2025 that needs to be discussed most begins.

WE HAVE RISEN; BUT ACCORDING TO WHAT? We Must Also Look at the Other Side of the Coin

First, let us give credit where it is due: Turkey's rise in PISA 2025 is not just a statistical illusion caused by the decline of other countries. There is a real and significant improvement in our own scores as well.

The picture has changed significantly since 2003, when Turkey first participated in PISA. The average score increased from 434 to 494 in science, from 441 to 472 in reading, and from 423 to 462 in mathematics. Thus, in 22 years, an increase of 60 points in science, 39 points in mathematics, and 31 points in reading was achieved.

Moreover, the progress has accelerated in the recent period. While Turkey increased its scores by 18 in science, 16 in reading, and 8 in mathematics between 2022 and 2025, the OECD average declined by 3, 14, and 9 points, respectively, in the same period. Therefore, the rapid rise in the rankings is the result of a two-way movement: while Turkey is progressing, the OECD average is declining.

This change was also strongly reflected in the rankings. Turkey rose to 13th place in reading, 14th in science, and 23rd in mathematics among 38 OECD countries. Among all 91 countries and economies, it ranked 19th in science, 18th in reading, and 28th in mathematics.

The direction is also upward in long-term comparisons. However, because the number of countries and economies participating in PISA increased from 41 in 2003 to 91 in 2025, looking only at rank numbers can be misleading. According to the calculation made by the Ministry of National Education (MEB) based on percentile position, Turkey's relative ranking improved by 64 percent in science, 60 percent in reading, and 52 percent in mathematics during the 2003–2025 period.

In summary, there is a success that should not be underestimated: Turkey is both progressing compared to its own past and moving up in international rankings. In 2025, it surpassed the OECD average of 482 with 494 points in science, the average of 461 with 472 points in reading, and almost caught up to the OECD average of 463 with 462 points in mathematics.

But the other side of the coin begins exactly here.

Because ranking is relative, and the quality of education is a much broader concept. We cannot measure the success of an education system only by looking at its place among other countries. The real issue is how many of the students can understand what they read, interpret information, reason mathematically, and apply what they have learned to real-life problems.

Furthermore, an increase in the average does not mean that success is spread to everyone. Behind the same average, there can be very different pictures: success can be spread across a wide student base, or it can be concentrated in certain school types, regions, or socioeconomic groups.

For this reason, we must no longer look at PISA 2025 only by asking “What rank did Turkey achieve?”, but with a more difficult question: To what extent has this rise spread to the whole of Turkey?

Because true success in education is not just raising the average; it is spreading success to the base, reducing inequality of opportunity, and reducing as much as possible the dependence of a child's future on the family they were born into, the place they live, or the type of school they attend.

This is exactly where the aspect of PISA 2025 that needs to be discussed most for Turkey begins.

IF INEQUALITY GROWS WHILE THE AVERAGE RISES…

Economics teaches us an important truth: The average can hide the distribution.

While per capita income increases, the welfare of a significant segment of society may remain stagnant; while the economy grows, income distribution may deteriorate; while total wealth rises, poverty may deepen.

The situation is no different in education.

The rise in the PISA average does not mean that all children have progressed to the same extent. The achievement gap between socioeconomically advantaged and disadvantaged students in Turkey is still high. Moreover, some indicators point to this distance widening in recent years. The fact that the gap between the highest and lowest performing students is growing, especially in mathematics and science, should therefore be read with caution.

At this very point, the issue ceases to be just about educational success and turns into an issue of equality of opportunity.

Because if a child's academic future continues to be determined by their family's income, the neighborhood they live in, the school they attend, or their parents' education level, an increase in the average score is valuable; but it is not enough.

One of the fundamental functions of public education is not to reproduce social inequalities, but to reduce them. Education should be one of the most powerful tools for a child to overcome the limits of the conditions they were born into and for social mobility.

If not everyone can reach even the first step of the education ladder with the same opportunities, the increase in the number of those who rise cannot be considered a success on its own.

Because the real issue in education is not just to move those at the top higher, but to reduce the distance between the starting lines.

WHICH SCHOOL YOU ATTEND SHOULD NOT BE YOUR DESTINY

One of the results of PISA 2025 that needs the most reflection is the large achievement gaps between school types.

The fact that the score differences between science high schools and vocational and technical high schools are expressed in the hundreds is not just an education statistic. This picture shows that children who are the same age and citizens of the same country are being prepared for the future from very different starting points.

On one side, students who can solve complex problems, perform analysis, and apply scientific knowledge to daily life; on the other side, young people who struggle to reach basic competencies…

Yet, in a few years, all of these children will enter the same labor market, shape the production capacity of the same economy, and the future of the same society together.

This is where inequality in education turns directly into a human capital problem.

Because a country's human capital does not consist only of the most successful 5 or 10 percent. The technician working in industry, the teacher, the engineer, the healthcare worker, the entrepreneur, the public official, and the young person producing in agriculture are all part of the same stock of human capital.

Therefore, the deficiency of a student in vocational education in basic mathematics, reading, and problem-solving skills is not just a problem of the education system. It is also a problem of industrial policy, employment policy, income distribution, and ultimately, development policy.

Because the quality gap that forms in school desks today will appear before the economy tomorrow as low productivity, low wages, low value-added, and limited growth capacity.

That is why which school you attend should not be a destiny that determines what kind of future you will have.

EDUCATION IS NOT AN EXPENSE, IT IS CAPITAL

In public finance, we often look at education through a budget item:

How many teachers were appointed? How many schools and classrooms were built? How much of the budget was allocated to education?

Of course, all of these are important. But the real question is different:

What result did the spent resources produce?

Because the success of public expenditures should be measured not only by their size but by the social and economic value they create. For this very reason, education is not an ordinary expense item, but a long-term investment made in the human capital of the future.

The investment made today in a child's capacity for reading comprehension, mathematical thinking, scientific curiosity, and problem-solving returns tomorrow as higher productivity, more qualified employment, more innovative businesses, higher income, and a stronger economic structure.

Moreover, quality education does not only increase an individual's income. While strengthening the economy's capacity to produce value-added, the quality of institutions, and the public's tax base, it also reduces the social costs of unemployment, poverty, and social exclusion.

For this reason, evaluating education only within the boundaries of education policy remains incomplete. Education is also a policy of growth, productivity, income distribution, and development.

PISA should also be viewed with this perspective. Because PISA shows not only what today's students know, but to some extent, on what human capital tomorrow's economy will rise.

A problem that cannot be solved in the classroom today may appear before us tomorrow as low productivity in production, foreign dependency in technology, a quality gap in the labor market, and inequality in income distribution.

That is why the real return on the resources allocated to education should be sought not in how much we spend in the budget, but in what kind of person we are raising.

DIGITALIZATION IS ONE THING, DIGITAL COMPETENCE IS ANOTHER

One of the less discussed but critical results of PISA 2025 for the future is learning and problem-solving skills in the digital world.

While Turkey has made significant progress in basic areas, it cannot show the same performance in digital problem-solving and new-generation skills. This picture reminds us of an important distinction: Digitalization is one thing, digital competence is another.

Putting a computer in a school, placing a smart board in a classroom, or giving a tablet to a student are tools of digitalization; but they are not digital transformation on their own. Because there is a big difference between accessing technology and being able to use technology by understanding, questioning, and using it productively.

Today's human capital no longer consists only of manpower that can read, write, and perform basic mathematical operations. There is a need for human resources that can question information, compare different sources, think algorithmically, solve complex problems, and question the information produced by artificial intelligence while using it.

The real competition in the digital age is happening here. Buying technology is easy; the real issue is to raise the people who will develop it, produce it, and turn it into value-added.

Because technology can be imported, infrastructure can be bought; but human capital cannot be imported. It must be built over the years through education, science, research, and qualified institutions.

The path to sustainable development also passes through here. Otherwise, we may be an economy that buys and uses technology; but we will continue to lag behind the economies that design, produce, and sell technology to the world.

CONCLUSION: True Success is Reducing the Distance Between Opportunities

PISA 2025 showed us that Turkey can rise in education. It would not be right to ignore the effort of students, the labor of teachers, the contribution of families, and the progress achieved over the years. Now we must achieve the more difficult: to reach every child with this rise.

Because rising averages and climbing steps in the rankings do not mean that structural inequalities in education have disappeared. True and sustainable success is not just moving the most successful students higher; it is spreading success to the base and reducing the difference between children's starting conditions.

If we are aiming for inclusive growth in the economy, justice in income distribution, and high value-added production, we must also place inclusive success and equality of opportunity at the center of education. Quality education should not be the privilege of a few elite schools or the children of advantaged families. If a child's future is determined by their family's income, the region they live in, or the school they attend, education begins to reproduce social inequalities instead of reducing them.

Moreover, today's educational inequality is not just a problem of today; it also determines tomorrow's income distribution, productivity, capacity to produce value-added, and social mobility. For this reason, equality of opportunity in education is not just a matter of social justice, but also a matter of Turkey's human capital and development.

That is why our real question in the next PISA results should not be “What rank did we achieve?”, but “How much were we able to spread success to the base?”

Because a country's true success is measured not only by how many children it brings to the peak, but by the extent to which it offers every child the opportunity to reach that peak.

True development is to be able to reduce the distance between opportunities before raising the averages. Because a country's future is shaped not by the conditions its children are born into, but by the opportunities it offers them.