site.btaBulgarian Students' Performance in 2022 PISA Tests Remains Poor

A total of 54% of Bulgarian students failed to meet the baseline standard for math, according to the results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 2022 presented here on Tuesday.

The average score of Bulgarian students in math, which was the focus of the assessment, was 417 points, below the OECD average of 472. Bulgarian students' results are similar to those of previous PISA assessments, which are held every three years.

Bulgaria’s results are similar to those of Cyprus, Moldova, Mongolia, Qatar, and Chile. 53% of this country's students did not get the baseline in reading. Their share for the natural sciences test was 48%.

During the presentation of the results, Education and Science Minister Galin Tzokov said that targeted efforts will be made in the coming years to ensure that Bulgarian students can utilize the skills related to the knowledge they have acquired. This way, he argued, they will score higher in the next PISA assessment in 2025. "We will support both teachers and schools. We cannot prepare them specifically for the PISA tests. What we can do is to support them in implementing quality standards in education," Tzokov added.

The Minister said that he had been assured by OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher, who initiated and oversees PISA, that additional analyses will be made for Bulgaria, which will also help this country’s Education Ministry in planning future measures.

The social environment has a strong influence on students' performance, the assessment found. Students from households owning more than 16 books tend to perform better in reading comprehension, mathematics and science. Some 46% of Bulgarian students reported being distracted by using digital devices in their classes, with 30% being the average for OECD countries. The attention retention rate of Bulgarian students has also dropped significantly - some 48% of students do not pay attention to what their teachers say in math class, up by 18% compared to the OECD average.

The 2022 PISA assessment was conducted among 15-year-old students from 81 countries. They took tests in math, reading, and natural sciences. In Bulgaria, the assessment was conducted between March 21 and April 22, 2022 among 6,107 students from 202 schools across the country. The students were from the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. Ninth graders were the largest group, accounting for 92% of all participants.