1 in 3 Flemish Youth Below Basic Reading Level: PISA 2025

Nearly one in three Flemish 15-year-olds fails to reach the basic reading level, according to new PISA 2025 results released on Tuesday. The findings confirm a continuing decline in mathematics and reading performance among Flemish students, raising fresh concerns about educational standards in the region.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tested nearly 4,000 students from 129 schools across Flanders, found that 29.4 percent of Flemish 15-year-olds fall below the basic reading benchmark—the level required to participate fully in modern society. Mathematics results showed 25.6 percent below the basic level, while science saw 22.6 percent fall short, as VRT NWS reported.

A Region in Decline

Flanders was once a world leader in education. In 2003, one in three Flemish students was a top performer in mathematics, and the region led global rankings. Today, that figure has fallen to just one in nine. For science, only 8.2 percent of students are top performers, and for reading, just 5.6 percent, according to the UGent PISA Research Center.

The decline has accelerated in recent years. Since 2022, reading scores have dropped by 16 points and mathematics by 12 points, while science has remained stable. Looking further back, the picture is starker: since 2015, reading has declined by 44 points, mathematics by 32 points, and science by 20 points.

However, Flanders is not alone in this trajectory. No EU country has seen reading or mathematics scores rise over the past decade. Only England and Slovakia showed improvements in science, according to the Flemish government’s education department.

The Reading Crisis

The most alarming finding is in reading. The decline between 2018 and 2025 is double the decline recorded between 2009 and 2018. Researchers point to declining reading habits among youth, increased screen time, and less engagement with long-form texts as contributing factors.

“There is likely a connection with the fact that students read less and less,” said Johan van Braak, professor of educational sciences at Ghent University. “Especially with long texts they come into less and less contact. Everything evolves toward online content and quick scanning. So it’s a broader societal problem and not just an education problem,” he told Klasse.

Liesbet Berlamont, a researcher at UGent who works on the PISA team, noted that “almost 30 percent of our 15-year-olds don’t reach that bar. Boys perform worse than girls: 35 percent are below the basic level. More than 40 to 50 percent of students with low socio-economic status, another home language or migration background also score insufficiently on reading.”

Vocational Education: The Weakest Link

Three-quarters of students in vocational education (beroepsonderwijs) fail to reach the basic reading level—a figure Flemish Education Minister Zuhal Demir called “shameful.”

“Not only because we are a knowledge economy, but also because that lack of basic skills affects their personal happiness and their health,” Demir said, as reported by BRUZZ.

Bruno Vanobbergen, director-general of Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen, highlighted a structural problem: “We see that 20 percent of students who start in the first year of the B-stream come directly from the fourth grade. That means we have a large group of students who, in one way or another, get stuck in primary education.”

Walentina Cools of OVSG (Onderwijs Voor Steden en Gemeenten) called for modular organization of vocational education: “That makes it very challenging for teachers. That’s why we ask to organize this type of education in modules. Some students lack general knowledge but are very good at the profession they are learning.”

A Widening Gender and Socio-Economic Gap

More than one-third of boys are now low performers in reading, and the gap between boys and girls in this domain is widening. Demir has asked universities to investigate the causes of this trend.

The socio-economic divide remains one of the largest in the OECD. More than 40 percent of students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds fail to reach the basic reading level, compared to about 10 percent from advantaged backgrounds. Nearly half of students with a migration background or non-Dutch home language also fall below the benchmark.

Policy Response and Reform

Demir, who has been implementing the most significant education reform in 30 years, acknowledged the scale of the challenge. “Without people with sufficient knowledge you cannot build a strong society,” she said. “We used to be among the best in the world and must now take the lead to get back to that level.” She added: “But we can still turn the tide.”

The minister has acknowledged that improvements may take 10 to 12 years to materialize, as reported by The Brussels Times. New knowledge-rich minimum attainment targets for primary education take effect from September 2026, inspired by the English model. However, the reforms have faced significant resistance from teachers and education unions.

Education networks are proposing their own solutions. Koen Pelleriaux of Gemeenschapsonderwijs (GO!) noted that “these results underscore how important it is to further strengthen general education in secondary education.” Vanobbergen argued that “we must do everything we can to achieve a better result within three years.”

Bright Spots Amid the Decline

Despite the overall downward trend, Flanders performs strongly in computational problem-solving—the innovative domain introduced in PISA 2025. The region ranks 11th internationally and second only to Estonia among EU countries. More than one-third of Flemish students perform at the top level in this domain.

Flanders also continues to score above EU and OECD averages in all three core domains. Among EU countries, only Estonia scores higher across all three subjects.

Methodological Caution

Experts caution against over-interpreting PISA rankings. Writing in EOS Wetenschap, UGent researchers note that PISA scores are estimates with uncertainty margins. Flanders’ actual position for reading could range between positions 14 and 29 depending on how statistical significance is considered. Additionally, PISA measures applied knowledge rather than curriculum mastery, and cross-country comparisons are complicated by translation issues and cultural differences.

Education researcher Pedro De Bruyckere also cautioned that the data “mainly show correlations and not causal relationships,” as he wrote on his blog.

What’s Next

The PISA 2025 results serve as a stark reminder of the challenges facing Flemish education. Demir plans to contact the European Commissioner for Education and her European colleagues to discuss the broader continental decline. She is pressing forward with her reforms despite resistance, arguing that the new knowledge-rich curriculum will eventually reverse the trend.

Vanobbergen, however, believes change can come sooner: “We must do everything we can to achieve a better result within three years.” The next PISA assessment will reveal whether Flanders can begin to turn the tide—or whether the decline continues unabated.