One in three 15-year-olds in Sweden can now only manage to read the most basic texts.
The OECD's Pisa 2025 assessment tracks how 15-year-olds in 91 countries and regions perform in science, reading, and mathematics.
Sweden's sharpest drop was recorded in reading comprehension (down 21 points) and mathematics (down 18 points), while the decline in science was smaller (down 8 points).
A drop of 20 points corresponds roughly to a full year of lost learning.
Despite these steep losses, Sweden remains on a par with – rather than below – the OECD average across all three subjects. This is largely because a wide range of other nations have also slipped backwards.
The trend is clearest in reading comprehension, where even top-performing Pisa nations such as Singapore, Japan and South Korea saw scores fall compared to the previous assessment in 2022. Across the Nordic region, all five countries posted worse results in every subject area.
The proportion of 15-year-olds classed as low performers across all three areas now stands at 19.4 percent in Sweden and 19.7 percent across the OECD. This means that nearly one in five students struggles both to read a simple text and to interpret basic data.
When subject areas are viewed individually, the numbers with severely weak skills are higher still. In reading, 31 percent of Swedish pupils cannot handle anything beyond the simplest texts – matching the OECD average.
This decline in reading ability is particularly worrying because reading is fundamental to how well pupils perform in other subjects, writes Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's director for education and skills, in his analysis.
He points to a combination of factors: more time spent reading on screens at the expense of deep reading, less reading for pleasure, shorter attention spans, and changing attitudes towards learning and school. He argues that the primary task for educational authorities must now be to reignite young people's interest in reading.