The 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that Brazilian students’ performance in mathematics, science and reading deteriorated after the pandemic. The data was released on Tuesday, September 5, by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris.
With this result, the country was among the 20 worst countries in the world in mathematics and science and among the 30 worst in literature, the three areas of knowledge that the program assesses.
In total, more than 14,000 students from 420 Brazilian municipalities participated in the exams.
“Covid seems to be an obvious factor. However, look closely at the data. An analysis of trends in Pisa results before 2018 reveals that performance in reading and science began to decline long before the pandemic. In these topics, performance peaked in 2012 and 2009, respectively, before declining. This suggests that long-term issues also have an impact.The OECD report stated.
According to the OECD report, Brazil followed the trend of other countries, although its losses were less pronounced than the average of member states. The area of knowledge that saw the greatest decline was mathematics, whose Brazilian score fell from 384 to 379, between 2018 and 2022. In literature, Brazil recorded a drop from 413 points, in 2018, to 410, in 2022. In science, the score rose from 404 to 403 in this period.
The data also shows that countries that spent less time with school closures were able to maintain or improve results after the pandemic. While 51% of students, on average, spent more than three months with schools closed during this period, in Brazil the rate rose to 74%.
