The PISA study

PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, is an international study run by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). It assesses the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students, enabling comparisons between the education systems of the participating countries and economies.

PISA assesses the extent to which young people nearing the end of compulsory schooling are able to use their knowledge and skills to participate fully in social and economic life. As such, the study does not just measure what they have learned in school but also their ability to draw upon their learning and apply it to real-life situations.

PISA 2025

In 2025, Luxembourg took part in the PISA study for the eighth time.

Students were assessed in four domains:

  • science: understanding scientific questions, putting knowledge into practice and using it to make reasoned decisions;
  • mathematics: reasoning, formulating, using and interpreting mathematics to solve real-world problems;
  • reading comprehension: understanding, analysing and interpreting a range of text types, establishing links between multiple sources and reading critically;
  • learning in the digital world: building knowledge and solving problems step by step and independently using digital tools. This domain includes computational problem-solving.

PISA 2025 focused on science as its primary domain. For the first time, learning in the digital world was assessed as an innovative domain.

Over 760,000 students from 91 countries and economies participated in PISA 2025. In Luxembourg, 6,078 students from 49 schools took part in the study. They represented around 6,500 young people aged 15, almost 91% of that age group.

In Luxembourg, students could choose to take the test in German or French. Students from English-speaking sections took it in English. All tests were carried out on computers.

The international results from PISA 2025 were published on 8 September 2026. The next PISA study will be held in 2029.

 

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