The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) runs the Programme for International Student Assessment, known as Pisa, which evaluates knowledge and skills across Science, Reading and Maths among teenagers worldwide.
Approximately 750,000 fifteen-year-olds from ninety-one nations participated in these three-yearly examinations, with nearly 3,500 students from one hundred and four schools in Northern Ireland taking the computer-based tests during September and October 2025.
In Science, pupils in Northern Ireland secured an average score of 492, placing them comfortably within the top third of participating countries.
This achievement in 2025 showed no significant variation when compared to results obtained a decade earlier in 2015.
While literacy and numeracy performance has deteriorated over the same period, female students continued to outperform their male counterparts in Reading tests.
Similar gender dynamics were observed in Science and Maths assessments.
The Reading score for Northern Ireland stood at 482 in 2025, a figure that remained high relative to many other nations but represented a notable decrease from the 497 recorded in 2015.
Maths results followed a comparable trajectory, with a 2025 average of 473 falling short of the 2015 benchmark despite still exceeding scores achieved by numerous other countries.