Japan Data

Japan Ranks Top Among OECD Countries in Global Student Assessment

Education

Japan ranked first among OECD countries in all three categories (reading, science, and mathematics) of the Program for International Student Assessment in 2025, maintaining steady performance while average scores in other nations declined.
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High Scores All Around

Japan largely maintained its position among the world’s top performers in the OECD’s 2025 Program for International Student Assessment survey of 760,000 15-year-olds across 91 countries and regions. It placed fourth in reading (down one place since the previous test in 2022), fifth in science (down three places), and fifth in mathematics (no change).

Conducted around every three years since 2000, PISA has seen average scores across OECD nations fall since 2015. Japan, however, has held largely steady, allowing it to sweep first place among the 38 surveyed OECD members in all three subjects for the first time in 2025. It averaged 503 points in reading (down 13 points), 538 in science (down 9 points), and 536 in mathematics (down 11 points).

Across all three subjects, the proportion of low-performing students increased compared to the previous survey. At the same time, a trend emerged showing that students from households with higher parental education levels or greater socioeconomic advantages were more likely to score high.

Japan’s Performance in the Program for International Student Assessment

An accompanying survey revealed that fewer Japanese students reported liking to learn new things or having strong curiosity compared to the OECD average. Japan also trailed the average in planning study strategies and adapting them when encountering difficulties.

While the average time spent browsing social media and video sites on weekdays across 24 surveyed countries was 2.8 hours, Japan recorded the shortest time, averaging 2.3 hours. In a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in spring 2026, a trend was also observed where longer hours spent watching videos and social media correlated with lower academic test scores. This factor may be connected to Japan maintaining its high PISA performance.

Japan also ranked last among the 38 OECD nations in classroom generative AI adoption. Just 7.0% of Japanese students reported using generative AI daily or almost every day to assist their studies, compared to the OECD average of 19.1%.

Data Sources

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)

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