Spain is at the bottom of EU and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in knowledge of mathematics and science at the beginning of Secondary Education and is at similar levels to France, Belgium either Italywith more than 25 points difference with the average of the OECD.
According to the International Study of Trends in Mathematics and Science TIMSS 2023, in which 59 countries with fourth-year Primary students and 44 countries with second-year ESO students participate, in a Spanish classroom of 24 students, between eight and nine have low levels in mathematics performance and between seven and eight in science performance.
Low levels, which in the case of mathematics means, according to the report’s methodology, that students have a basic understanding, that is; They can add and subtract natural numbers of up to three figures, multiply and divide, and solve simple problems; and know basic geometric figures and simple graphs.
In that classroom of 24 students, only six would reach high levels, a figure well below the nine or ten students indicated by the OECD average. According to the report, 37.8% of the students in the indicated school years have low and very low levels on the mathematics scale, 9.8% are at very low, and 28% are at low.
Korea in the lead
South Korea leads the average performance in mathematics and science with 594 points and 583 points, respectively, Spain obtains 498 points in mathematics and 504 points in science; similar to France, Belgium or Italy. In mathematics, the OECD average is 525 points and the EU average is 514, and in science, it is 526 and 513 points, respectively.
Curiously, Spain’s result in mathematics is similar to that of Canada (504) and New Zealand (490), but it is very far from countries like South Korea or Japan (591), while there is also a high performance in Lithuania (561), Türkiye (553) and United Kingdom (552). Within the European Union, apart from Lithuania, the best performances correspond to Poland and Ireland (both with 546) and Romania (542 points).
Spain stagnates in the last eight years
More than 500 Spanish educational centers and more than 10,000 fourth-grade students have participated in this study – which is carried out every four years. Spain joined the report in 2011, but the evaluation since 2015 has not been good.
The document released by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Performance indicates that in 2015 Spain reduced by half the 40 points of difference it had with the international average, but from that year onwards “in the last two editions the distance with respect to the OECD average it has stabilized at around 25 points of difference”. In fact, in this edition, the mathematics and science performance of fourth grade students drops again by four points.
Low level in the mastery of numbers
The study of mathematics analyzes several domains of students, such as numbers, measurements, geometry and data, but also the cognitive dimension, knowledge or reasoning.
In the domain of numbers is where Spain has the worst position, with an average of 497 points. In measurements and geometry, Spain is the same as USA and France, while the best score is in the data domain (502 points).
Boys perform better than girls
Boys obtain a better estimated average performance than girls in all countries and in Spain the gap widens, since in 2011 the difference was 11 points and in 2023 it is close to 20 points. “Between 2011 and 2023 the gender gap in mathematics has increased by more than 63% in Spain,” he emphasizes.
Low data is also repeated in science
Following the levels of mathematics, Spanish students arrive at ESO with low levels in science. One third has basic levels on plants, animals and environment. They know some properties of matter and the characteristics of the Earth, but 8% of them are at a “very low” level.
South Korea (583 points) continues to lead the highest score, followed by Turkey (570 points), while the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Poland present an average of 550 points or more.
Castilla y León, Asturias, Madrid and Navarra at the head
Castilla y León, Principality of Asturias, Community of Madrid and Navarra are the regions with the best scores (between 522 and 517 points) in mathematical knowledge, all of them above the EU average (514 points). At the opposite extreme are Catalonia, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands with average scores lower than the average for Spain.
In Sciences; Asturias, Galicia, Castilla y León and Comunidad de Madrid present average scores above 520 points. And at the other extreme, the Canary Islands, Andalusia and the Balearic Islands do not reach 500 points. In the latter case, the average is close to the score limit that separates the intermediate and low performance levels.
In this eighth edition of the study in which Spain has participated, the students’ sense of belonging to the educational center and their coexistence in it has been evaluated.
In these areas, Spain is at the top of the classification, especially in terms of the sense of belonging to the school, so that students feel more accepted and valued than the majority of students in the countries included in this comparison. .
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