1. Education

   Fourth-graders in 25 countries do maths better than 20–30 years ago: up in 18, down in 2

   For eighth-graders it is more even: better in 13 of 27 countries, worse in 8. The recent fall is theirs too: from 2019 to 2023 worse in 14 countries, better in 3.

   Source: IEA: TIMSS 1995–2023 · non-commercial use with attributionOpen on the chart →

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   An international maths test checks grades 4 and 8 every four years on one scale. Shown: countries tested both in 1995–2007 and in 2023.

   Each bar is the number of countries whose mean rose or fell significantly from their first test to 2023; the rest changed within the error.

   • Grade 4: better / worse / unchanged countries

     18 / 2 / 5

     IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

   • Grade 8: better / worse / unchanged countries

     13 / 8 / 6

     IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

   • Grade 8, 2019→2023: better / worse countries

     3 / 14

     IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

   IEA TIMSS 2023: trend tables of means (grades 4 and 8, maths) with the report's significance marks. First test: the country's earliest comparable cycle up to 2007.

   Unchanged: 5 countries in grade 4, 6 in grade 8. Only countries tested in both years; Russia did not take part in 2023. Since 2019 some countries took the test on computer.

   A question for this picture

   Where did eighth-graders lose the most?

More findings

• OECD pupils with 5–7 hours of non-study screen time at school score 62 points lower in maths than those with up to an hour
• Israel: 15-year-olds with problems from social media rose from 5% to 16%, and maths did not fall; in Norway there are fewer, and maths fell 33 points
• OECD pupils: where phones are banned at school, 50% use one there every day; where they are not, 63%
• OECD pupils: an hour of leisure screen time at school goes with 6 fewer maths points, an hour after school with 3 more
• Schoolgirls in Europe and Canada: schoolwork weighs on 62% of 15-year-old girls, up from 50% in 2014; boys, 43%
• OECD 15-year-olds: 14 more hours a week online from 2012 to 2018, and maths stayed where it was

All findings →