Ukraine’s PISA 2025 results show resilience under war and highlight priorities for education recovery
Ukraine has completed its third cycle of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — and its second since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A total of 8,962 students from 17 regions of Ukraine participated in PISA 2025. For security reasons, testing was not conducted in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, as well as in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
The 2025 results can therefore be directly compared with the 2022 data adjusted to the same geographical coverage, while comparisons with 2018 should be treated with caution.
The results provide internationally comparable evidence of how Ukraine’s 15-year-olds are learning after years of unprecedented disruption. The key finding is one of resilience, but not yet recovery: student performance in science, mathematics and reading did not change significantly between 2022 and 2025, despite continued war-related disruption.
At the same time, learning outcomes remain below pre-pandemic levels and significant inequalities persist.
The students assessed in 2025 are a generation whose entire secondary school experience has been shaped by crisis. They entered school in 2016, experienced the COVID-19 pandemic in Grade 5 and have been learning under full-scale war since Grade 7.
This also means that PISA 2025 should not be interpreted as an assessment of Ukraine’s New Ukrainian School (NUS) reform. This cohort entered lower secondary education before the systematic implementation of NUS at this level. Instead, the results provide important evidence about the challenges Ukraine’s education reforms and recovery policies now need to address.
“Behind every PISA figure are children who spent a significant part of their school years first learning during the pandemic and then under the conditions of the full-scale war. The fact that results have stabilised compared with 2022 speaks to the resilience of our students, teachers and the education system as a whole.
For us, however, PISA is above all a tool for working with data. It clearly shows where the biggest challenges lie today: foundational skills, reading, inequalities in educational opportunities, and research and digital skills. These data provide an evidence base for the decisions we will make. They also confirm the need to continue reforming general secondary education and will help us move from system resilience towards recovery and improved learning outcomes,” said Andrii Butenko, Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine.
Learning outcomes have stabilised, but foundational skills remain a challenge
Ukraine scored an average of 448 points in science, 431 in mathematics and 418 in reading. These results remain below OECD averages, with the largest gap in reading.
Many students still struggle with basic skills: 35% are below the baseline level in science, 46% in mathematics and 45% in reading. Almost three in ten students are below the baseline level in all three areas.
Reading remains particularly vulnerable. It has seen the largest decline compared with 2018 and the widest gender gap, with boys’ reading performance continuing to decline between 2022 and 2025.
PISA 2025 also offers a first look at how Ukrainian students learn in an increasingly digital environment. Ukraine scored 478 points in the new Learning in the Digital World domain, compared with an OECD average of 500. Ukrainian students are also using AI for learning more frequently than their peers across the OECD: 54% use AI chatbots for learning at least once a week, compared with 46% on average across OECD countries.
Where a child lives still matters too much
For Ukraine, one of the most important findings is the persistence of unequal educational opportunities.
The performance gap between students in rural areas and large cities reaches 61 points in mathematics, 65 in science and 68 in reading — approximately three years of schooling.
These differences are not explained by geography alone. They are also linked to students’ socio-economic backgrounds and to the resources and learning opportunities available in their schools.
According to school principals, 61% of Ukrainian students attend schools affected by shortages of learning materials and equipment, and 54% attend schools affected by shortages of digital resources. Around one-third attend schools experiencing shortages of teachers.
For Ukraine, this makes education recovery about more than returning average PISA scores to previous levels. It is also about ensuring that a child’s postcode and family circumstances become less decisive for the quality of education they can access.
“Every three years, hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds in more than 90 countries sit down to take the PISA assessment. They do not prepare for it. They do not receive grades for it. Yet when the results are published, presidents read them, ministers debate them, and newspapers put them on their front pages. Entire education systems are celebrated — or sometimes questioned.
Why? Because PISA is not simply testing students. It is taking the pulse of a country’s future. And this is what makes Ukraine’s achievement so extraordinary. These results were not achieved by chance. They were earned by teachers who continue teaching while air-raid sirens interrupt lessons; by school leaders who rebuild routines while buildings around them are being destroyed; and by families who keep believing that education still matters, even when everything else seems uncertain.” — Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD
Ukraine is combining education recovery with systemic reforms
Ukraine is already responding to these challenges while the war continues.
Restoring safe and regular access to learning remains the immediate priority. Between 2023 and 2026, the Government allocated more than UAH 20 billion for school shelters. Construction of 352 shelters has been completed, with another 126 projects nearing completion. This investment is helping more children return to in-person and blended learning wherever the security situation allows.
At the same time, Ukraine is continuing the New Ukrainian School reform, addressing many of the structural challenges reflected in PISA: unequal access to quality education, shortages of modern learning resources, the need for stronger foundational and modern competencies, and continued professional support for teachers.
In 2026, UAH 3.2 billion has been allocated to modern learning spaces and equipment in lower and upper secondary schools. Ukraine is also introducing an updated model of teacher professional development, giving teachers greater choice over training that responds to their professional needs.
A major next step is the transformation of upper secondary education. Since September 2026, 150 academic lyceums with around 10,000 students have been piloting the new upper secondary model, ahead of nationwide implementation in 2027.The upper secondary education reform will give students more freedom to shape their own learning pathway.. The new lyceum network is designed to make these opportunities accessible to students regardless of where they live.
Key components of the New Ukrainian School reform are being implemented by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine with World Bank support through the LEARN programme — Lifting Education Access and Resilience in times of Need in Ukraine.
“The PISA results send a clear message: despite the full-scale invasion, learning remained stable in most regions of Ukraine, as a result of the daily work by teachers, school leaders, students and families. At the same time, the study shows concerning learning gaps, as nearly one in three students does not reach basic proficiency levels. The next step is not only to protect learning, but to identify the children who are falling behind and provide the targeted support they need to succeed and contribute to Ukraine’s future recovery and growth.", said Enrique Alasino, Senior Education Specialist, World Bank
PISA 2025 shows that Ukraine has managed to protect learning from further deterioration under extraordinary circumstances. The challenge now is to turn resilience into recovery — by strengthening foundational skills, reducing inequalities and ensuring that every child has access to quality education, regardless of where they live.