Debacle of the Balearic Islands in PISA: they collapse in Mathematics and Reading

PalmaThe Balearic Islands worsen their results in the three competencies evaluated by the PISA 2025 report, with an especially sharp decline in reading comprehension. Students from the Islands obtain 441 points in reading, 449 in Mathematics, and 471 in science. The most pronounced drop is in reading, where the Balearic Islands go from 472 points in PISA 2022 to the current 441, losing 31 points in a single cycle. In mathematics, the setback is 22 points, from 471 to 449, while in science the decline is more moderate: nine points, from 480 to 471. It should be remembered that, according to the same regulations that govern the tests, a difference of more than 20 points is considered significant and is equivalent to a full academic year of work.

In this way, reading is the competency that deteriorates the most in the Islands between the two editions. The result of 441 points places the Balearic Islands at the lower end of the regional ranking, in a group that also includes Andalusia and Navarre, while the Valencian Community, Ceuta, and Melilla obtain lower scores. In Mathematics, the 449 points also leave the Balearic Islands below the state average, which stands at 457 points. The Balearic result remains behind most of the autonomous communities and only surpasses, among the regions, Murcia, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, and the Valencian Country, in addition to Ceuta and Melilla. The situation is slightly better in science, but it does not allow one to speak of a good evolution either. The Balearic Islands obtain 471 points, six less than Spain, which totals 477, and eleven less than the OECD average, which is at 482 points.

Regression compared to 2022

The results contrast with those of PISA 2022, when the Balearic Islands had obtained 480 points in science, 472 in reading and 471 in mathematics. In that edition, the differences with respect to the Spanish average were not statistically significant in any of the three competencies. Three years later, however, the scores have dropped in all areas. The accumulated setback is 62 points across the three competencies: 31 in reading, 22 in mathematics and 9 in science.

The Balearic decline is framed, moreover, in a PISA edition in which Spain also worsens its results. The country obtains 477 points in science, 451 in reading and 457 in mathematics, below the OECD averages in all three areas. Reading is the main weak point of the Balearic Islands in this PISA edition: in a single cycle, the Islands have gone from 472 to 441 points, while mathematics also registers a significant drop and science, despite holding up better, continues below the state and OECD average.