Hong Kong students drop in global rankings for maths, science and literacy

Hong Kong secondary school students’ performance has fallen in an international assessment focused on three core subjects, with their science score dropping out of the global top 10 for the first time in the study’s history.
Experts said on Tuesday that the decline in Hong Kong scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) was partly due to the post-Covid impact on study habits and learning motivation.
Held every three years, Pisa is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that tests 15-year-old students on reading, mathematics and science. The latest study, which ranked 91 countries and economies, was conducted from May to July 2025.
Each cycle since 2012 has also featured an “innovative domain”, which refers to a rotating test topic that measures real-world skills.
The 2025 results, announced by the University of Hong Kong’s education faculty, showed that the city’s students ranked 17th for science, with a score of 496, down from seventh place in 2022.
In comparison, the mainland Chinese municipalities and provinces of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang collectively ranked first, scoring 597.
Hong Kong ranked seventh in maths after scoring 522, down from fourth place in 2022, but remained well above the international average of 463. The mainland’s top regions held first place with a score of 612.
In terms of mother-tongue reading literacy, Hong Kong’s score dropped to 480, bringing it down from 11th place in 2022 to 15th. Singapore topped the ranking, netting a score of 535.
The latest study’s literacy portion placed greater emphasis on navigating multiple digital sources and judging online information.
Hong Kong’s Education Bureau, which commissioned the university to conduct the assessment, noted the OECD report partly attributed the decline in overall performance to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The bureau also noted a gap between the latest scores and the education sector’s observations of students’ abilities, with reasons for the disparity including pupils’ psychological state and concentration levels during the test.

Lam Wai-Ip, an associate professor of the faculty and co-project leader for the study, also said the drop in domain subject scores was part of a global decline.
She said that the current cohort had experienced pandemic-related disruptions and grown up in a highly digital environment with rapidly consumed, fragmented online content.
“The pandemic has affected student study habits and learning motivation,” she said.
“The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development found that curiosity, persistence and the ability to integrate and process long or complex texts have dropped since 2022.”
Professor Nancy Law Wai-ying, a member of the study team, said the drop in the city’s science score was related to a shift in the assessment framework, which had moved beyond rote-learning knowledge and now required students to research, evaluate and use scientific information to justify decisions in uncertain contexts.
But Hong Kong students managed to achieve a strong score in the latest assessment’s special topic, “Learning in the Digital World”, with the city ranking sixth and scoring 545, far exceeding the international average of 500.
The assessment tested computational problem-solving through two 30-minute units, one focused on programming and the other on computational modelling.
The framework measured their ability to solve problems using computational tools, conduct experiments, analyse data and debug artefacts, all while exercising self-regulated learning.
The test results showed that 43.1 per cent of Hong Kong students had high levels of proficiency in digital learning, compared with a global average of 25.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, 12 per cent of Hong Kong students had low levels of proficiency, nearly half the global average.
In response to the results, the bureau said: “The outstanding performance in Learning in the Digital World shows the tangible results of our STEAM promotion.”
STEAM learning is an educational approach that combines science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths.
It also promised to continue focusing on artificial intelligence education, developing curriculum frameworks, supporting teacher training and strengthening students’ digital literacy.

Frederick Leung Koon-shing, an emeritus professor with the faculty and the study’s leader, stressed the importance of enhancing student agency to ensure future readiness.
“Excellent performance in Learning in the Digital World shows many students possess key competencies for developing agency, and the next step is to transfer these strengths to core domains,” he said.
Hong Kong was also found to have maintained strong educational equity in the latest assessment, with 15 per cent of disadvantaged students among top performers, above the OECD average of 12 per cent.
According to the report, Hong Kong students also reported strong teacher support, with 81 per cent saying teachers showed genuine interest and 82 per cent receiving extra help with their studies until they understood subject matter.
The city also scored 497 in digital and environmental adaptability, against an OECD average of 480, with nearly 80 per cent reaching baseline proficiency.
The latest assessment marks Hong Kong’s ninth cycle of taking part in the study. The 2025 sample covered 239 secondary schools, with 230 institutions and 6,445 students included in the final data set after quality assurance checks.
The participating students comprised 52 per cent boys and 48 per cent girls.