site.btaPISA 2015 Survey Reveals Alarming Picture of Literacy among 16-Year Olds

PISA 2015 Survey Reveals Alarming Picture of Literacy among 16-Year Olds

Sofia, December 6 (BTA) - Bulgaria ranks 45th among 72 countries, which took part in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2015, PISA national coordinator Svetla Petrova said.

PISA is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy every three years. First conducted in 2000, the major domain of study rotates between mathematics, science, and reading in each cycle.

A report on the performance of the Bulgarian students was presented at the Ministry of Education and Science on Tuesday. The tests were carried out in April and May 2015 and covered 6,363-students, born in 1999, from 180 schools across the country.

The results of the 2015 survey are better than the results of 2006. However, they reveal a highly alarming picture, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Meglena Kuneva said. "There is hardly a minister who would find it easy to say that 37.9 of the young people in Bulgaria are functionally illiterate in natural sciences with their percentage in reading and mathematics being even higher," said she.

Forty-one per cent of the students, who took part in the tests, are functionally illiterate in reading, 42 per cent in maths and 37.9 per cent in the natural sciences, said Petrova.

Petrova also noted that PISA is not an IQ test but assesses students' skills to analyze and use their knowledge in a real-life context.