00:00How well are the world's education systems preparing young people for the future?
00:05The latest OECD PISA report offers a fresh snapshot and, for many countries, a worrying reality check.
00:13From widening inequalities to declining performance in key skills,
00:17the results raise urgent questions about whether schools are keeping pace with a rapidly changing world.
00:23To discuss the report's findings, let's head to Warsaw, where we're joined by Maciej Jakubowski,
00:30Director of the Educational Research Institute and a former Undersecretary of State at the Polish Ministry of Education.
00:37Good morning, sir.
00:38Good morning.
00:39So, student performance in reading, maths and science is declining across OECD countries.
00:46A worrying trend, according to the EU Commission.
00:49Yesterday, the Commissioner for Skills and Quality Jobs, Roxana Minsato, reacted to the report, saying, and I quote,
00:56too many young Europeans are falling behind in essential skills.
01:00We recognize the scale of the challenge and the need to act.
01:04So, give us a sense of, you know, how EU countries measure up here.
01:11We see declines across the board, maybe not in the main domain of science,
01:17in which only some countries decline, but in mathematics and reading.
01:22So, foundational skills you need across the board, when you think about education and adult life,
01:28the decline is in most European countries.
01:31And we see an increasing number of students who are not reaching the basic level of proficiency in reading or
01:38in mathematics.
01:39Around one-third of young Europeans are now below the so-called level 2 in PISA,
01:45which means that, functionally, they are illiterates.
01:49Well, that's quite disturbing.
01:51How much of the problem is linked to smartphones, social media and declining attention spans?
01:59So, that's very difficult to link.
02:01These are cross-sectional data.
02:03We cannot say casually that there is a relationship, but that's the first guess.
02:08I mean, basically, we see students are not reading that much anymore.
02:12They read on smartphones, which is not the same reading.
02:15I mean, they read very short text, but a lot of them are just watching short movies.
02:20So, the reading skills are falling down.
02:23And the same is with mathematics.
02:24Mathematics is a practice-intensive domain.
02:27So, they are not really using, for example, technology like AI to learn.
02:32They are using AI to solve problems, to get quick solutions.
02:36So, we see that the practice is less intensive, and we think that's a problem.
02:42Okay.
02:43Well, thank you so much for your insights, Maciej Jakubowski.
