60% of Vietnamese students fail to reach basic reading proficiency

As many as 59% of Vietnamese students cannot use reading comprehension knowledge and information to handle real-world situations, according to a global assessment of 15-year-olds by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In the 2025 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), released this week by the OECD, more than 7,350 Vietnamese students from 194 secondary schools participated.

The results show that they scored an average of 457 points in science, 443 in mathematics, 392 in reading and 461 in computational problem-solving.

Hanoi students get ready for the high-school entrance exam on May 29, 2026. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Giang

These scores were around 15-70 points lower than those recorded in the most recent assessment in 2022. PISA does not set minimum or maximum scores but calculates scores to fit a standard distribution.

Only 41% of students reached Level 2 or above in reading, nearly 30 percentage points below the OECD average.

PISA 2025 uses six main proficiency levels, from Level 1 to Level 6, for its core subjects: reading, mathematics and science. Level 2 is considered the baseline minimum proficiency. This is considered the basic threshold, at which "students can identify the main idea in a text of moderate length, find information based on explicit, though sometimes complex criteria, and can reflect on the purpose and form of texts when explicitly directed to do so," according to the PISA results.

The proportion reaching Level 2 or above was higher in science and mathematics, at 71% and 58%, respectively, compared with OECD averages of 74% and 65%.

The Ministry of Education and Training said this was the first time Vietnamese students had switched from paper-based to computer-based testing. As the two formats differ significantly, the score gap is not sufficient to conclude that education quality has improved or declined, it said.

The ministry said students need to improve their reading comprehension skills across all subjects. This is not only the responsibility of literature classes, as students need to know how to read, select important information, compare and draw conclusions to solve word problems in mathematics, understand scientific phenomena, read maps and charts, or follow instructions on the internet.

To improve these skills, teachers can expose students to various types of information, including written texts, tables, images and data, and conduct regular assessments to provide timely support.

Teachers can also apply the PISA approach by asking students to explain, reason, process information, solve problems and think critically, while avoiding turning PISA into an exam or organizing test-preparation courses.

The ministry said the 2025 PISA results showed that Vietnam's education system has strong resources: students value learning, are persistent, actively seek support and are diligent; teachers closely monitor their students; and students quickly adapt to new technologies, according to the ministry.

PISA is conducted every three years. Vietnam first participated in 2012.

The latest assessment involved around 765,000 students from 91 countries and economies, the largest participation to date.

Students in China ranked as the world's top performers in mathematics and science, while Singapore ranked second in both subjects and led the world in reading.