Spanish Primary students worsen in Mathematics and Science and the gap with the European average increases

According to the report, made public today and which evaluates for the first time the environmental awareness of students, families and teachers, the students of this stage (ten years old) have worsened in Mathematics, a discipline in which they have obtained 489 points, four points less than in 2019 and seven less than 2015, and also in Sciences (504 points, compared to 511 out of 209 and 518 in 2015). The figures confirm a new consecutive drop since 2011 in both disciplines. Likewise, they confirm that the gap with the OECD and the EU in both competencies has also increased.

In Mathematics, the distance with the mean of the OECD (525) is 27 points, compared to the previous 25 points TIMSSand 16 points with respect to the average of the EU (514), compared to the 11 difference registered in 2019. In Sciences the trend is similar – they are separated by seven points more than in 2019 with respect to the OECD average and another six more with respect to the EU.

In the global classification by country, the highest scores in Mathematics have been taken by Asian countries for yet another year with Korea (594) and Japan (591) in the lead and followed by Lithuania (561) and Türkiye (553). Below 500 points are Spain (498), which is 27 points away from the OECD average (525) and 16 from the EU average (514) already; New Zealand (490); Belgium Fr (489); France (484) and Chile (444). In this edition, Spain appears in sixth position from the bottom.

By autonomous communities, Castile and León (522), the Principality of Asturias (520), the Community of Madrid (519) and the Foral Community of Navarra (517), capture the best score in the test, exceeding the average for Spain and the EU total. Catalonia (489) along with Canary Islands (485) and the Balearic Islands (473) close the list of the communities with the worst ratings.

Advantaged and lagging students

From the OECD as a whole, Japan and Korea are the countries that have the lowest percentage of students with low or very low performance: 5.5% and 6.6%, respectively, and they are also the ones that have the highest percentage of students at the advanced level: Korea (35, 5%) and Japan (31.6%).

Among the countries that present a high percentage of students at the very low level are Chili (29.3%), France (14.6%) and New Zealand (16.6%). Compared to the OECD average and the EU total, Spain also worsens in terms of lagging students. It has a high proportion of students, 37.8%, at the low (28.0%) and very low (9.8%) level of proficiency in Mathematics, a proportion that worsens compared to 2019, which was 37. %. If we compare it with the OECD average of students at low levels of performance (27%), the distance is 10.8 points and with the EU average the gap is 7.4 points.

It is difficult to improve in the PISA test, at the age of 15, if you do not improve in TIMSS and the results that are now being released confirm that there is a lot of room for improvement in Mathematics, a competence that is vital in increasingly technological economiesin a country where the technological baccalaureate is losing students, as is engineering, and where finding teachers in this subject is becoming a challenge for the educational system. If we don’t do well in TIMSS, we won’t do well in PISA.

In 2019, Spain came second from bottom in Mathematics, only ahead of France, of the European Union countries examined. In this edition, the first post covid, the results do not improve.

The situation in Science doesn’t improve and Spain continues to worsen its mark with 504 points, compared to the 511 registered in 2019 and the 518 in 2015, “a free fall” that worries specialists. As in Mathematics, the distance with the OECD (526) also increases -22 points below compared to 15 in 2019- and with the EU average (513) -nine points less, compared to three in the previous edition. – .

Regarding the global classification by country, the highest scores correspond to: Korea (583), Türkiye (570), United Kingdom (Ang.)(556) and Japan (555), while Cyprus (487), Belgiumto (Fr.) (481) and Chili (479) close the list of countries with the lowest overall performance in science. In the OECD as a whole, 40.1% of students do not reach the intermediate level, although the very low level is represented by 7% less than half of the maximum desirable level (15%).

Asian countries, with more gifted students

Asian countries are also the ones with the most gifted students in science. Korea and Japanstand out for presenting less than 2% of students at the very low level, while at the high and advanced level there are 70.3% and 54.1% of students, respectively.

At the bottom of the list are Cyprus, Belgium (Fr.) and Chilewith a percentage of students at a very low level of over 15%. Spain shows 33.1% of students between the low and very low level, compared to 25.3% in the OECD and 30.1% in the EU, while at the advanced level the percentage is small (3.9% ).

By communities, of the nine participants in the study, five of them show low and very low levels of performance below the Spanish average. Among them stands out the Principality of Asturias (3.6% at the very low level and 17.1% at the low level) and Galicia (3.5% at very low level and 18.2% at low level). Communities with a proportion of students who do not reach the highest intermediate level are Andalusia (36.8%) and Balearic Islands (42.4%).

Environmental awareness

This year, TIMSS evaluates environmental awareness for the first time and Asian countries continue to be the most advantaged students. Korea With 575 points it tops the list of countries with the best global performance. Below are Poland and United Kingdomor (Ang.), with 557 points each, followed by Türkiye (553) and Australia (550).

At the other end of the list are France (496), Belgium (Fl.) (489), Chile (484), Belgium (Fr.) (481) and Cyprus (480), all of them below 500 points. reference. Spain also fails (510 points), six less than the EU average (516) and 15 less than the OECD average (525), placing it in eighth country from bottom in environmental awareness. Galicia, Asturias and Castilla León are the communities with the greatest awareness in this area and Andalusia is the one with the worst record. The countries with the most aware students are: Korea, Poland, the United Kingdom (English), Japan and Australia. All of them present values ​​less than 20% in the two lower levels of the performance scale (low and very low), highlighting Korea and Poland with practically 3% of students located at the very low level and Japan with 3.7%. At the opposite extreme are Chile, Cyprus and Belgium, where more than 40% of students are at low levels of performance. Spain has 32.5% of students in the low performance bands, compared to the OECD average of 32.5% and the EU average of 30.5%.

Experts have been warning for years about the low level of Priamria students in Mathematics and Science. When the PISA results came out in January of this year, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, committed to launching a plan to reinforce mathematics and reading comprehension endowed with 500 million of euros. This plan, which intended to benefit 4.7 million students from the third year of Primary to the fourth year of ESO, remained at 64.8 million for the improvement of mathematics to be carried out by the different communities. A group of experts has also been appointed to study carefully how and what type of programs are assigned.

What have other countries done? In the United Kingdom, for example, they have been improving teacher training for a decade, from the establishment of a National Academy of Mathematics to the establishment of centers in which primary teachers and university teachers who are experts in mathematics teaching come into contact. It is worth remembering that, a couple of years ago, the Government had to back down on its intention to cut mathematics teaching hours for primary teachers in its study plans, given the opposition of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME) and the majority of the deans of the faculties of Education. Since then, various communities have launched extra training plans in this subject for their teachers and Catalonia is considering launching a specific Mathematics teacher degree.