Research project Successful PISA Stories in the EU

Mastering of basic skills can be a prerequisite to thrive in life, to find fulfilling jobs and to become engaged citizens. In 2018, the EU did not achieve its target to reduce the share of 15-year-olds achieving low levels of attainment in reading, mathematics and science to less than 15 percent by 2020.

Even though students' performance in the EU measured by PISA mostly deteriorated over the last decade, some EU countries have been able to beat the overall trend and improve their performance. Many of them are known to have implemented structural education reforms such as increasing school autonomy, tackling inequalities from early years and strengthening teacher training systems. It is therefore important to try to understand how certain reforms may have contributed to improving academic success of students in specific countries and if possible, identify patterns for successful measures for achieving quality and inclusiveness of the EU education systems.

To analyse which factors may be associated with these positive trends in PISA results, and which reforms may have had an impact on student performance, DG Education and Culture commissioned a study Successful PISA Stories in the EU: How Some Member States Have Been Able to Improve Their Performance Over Time. The study was implemented by PPMI and EQUALE (University of Liege) with the support of national experts in selected countries.

Sweden is one of the countries that has turned a declining trend in achievement results. After the decreasing performance until 2012, the results in the next editions of PISA have been improving. The research group PRIM at Stockholm University was supporting PPMI as national experts for Sweden (lead expert Samuel Sollerman) in gathering information about educational developments and policies and their impact in Sweden.

The full study report and country analysis can be accessed here.