Fifteen-year-old students in several European countries have seen a decline in reading and maths scores over the past year, partially due to mass immigration, results from the PISA school test show.
Several European countries have reported a fall in their PISA test scores this year, including France, Germany, Sweden and Finland. Some low scores have been linked to the measures undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, but others have been blamed on mass immigration.
The PISA test is conducted across countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) every three years. It measures student aptitude in subjects from mathematics to reading comprehension and scientific literacy.
France, according to a report from the newspaper Le Figaro, dropped 21 points in mathematics, 19 points in reading comprehension, and 6 points in scientific literacy but remained above the OECD average in all subjects.
While the OECD noted that the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on schooling had played a role in the decline, it noted that the pandemic was not the only factor.
During the COVID-19 pandemic many countries forbid students from attending class in person and switched to remote learning from home, depriving children of in-person learning and social interactions.
In France, schools closed in November of 2020 and many did not open until months later in May of 2021, and policies remained in place in which entire classes or primary school students were switched for weeks to remote learning if a single student tested positive for the virus.
A study published in March of this year looked specifically at the effect of the lockdowns and other pandemic measures on student IQ scores in Germany and found students performed far worse than those who had taken the test prior to the pandemic.
The researchers re-tested the students a year after schools had reopened but did not find any significant improvement in their IQ scores.
In Germany, for example, the OECD pointed toward mass migration as a factor saying, “It is worth mentioning that the proportion of pupils with a migrant background in Germany has doubled from 13% in 2012 to 26% in 2022.”
“In 2022, almost one in 10 pupils in Germany (9%) was born in another country, which also means that they often joined the German education system ‘on the go.’ Obviously, Germany has not always been able to integrate them well into a highly stratified system,” the organisation said.
In France, around half of the students claimed that there was noise and disorder in most or all of their classes while 39% said they had to wait extended periods for teachers to begin or resume teaching due to disruptions.
Similar falls in scores were reported in Sweden, Finland and other European countries but some countries, notably Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore have all managed to increase their PISA scores.
Swedish Minister for Employment and Integration Johan Pehrson held a press conference regarding the PISA scores saying, “There has never been a major drop in mathematics and reading comprehension. It is historic.”
“It is clear, not to say tragic, that we have a country of the educated where fewer people can read and we have a country of engineers where fewer people can count,” he said.
Sweden was mired in controversy regarding its 2019 PISA score after claims that the country had removed the test scores of foreign-born students and those with poor Swedish language skills in order to boost the country’s score that year.
Swedish media claimed that as many as 11% of students were removed from taking the test in violation of the OECD rules. Only students who have been in the country for less than a year can be exempt from the test and those who have been in school in the country for over a year must participate.