PISA 2006, Reading

Reading is the area with the largest gender gaps. In all OECD countries in PISA 2006, females performed better in reading on average than males. In twelve countries, the gap was at least 50 score points. In Greece and Finland, females were 57 and 51 points ahead respectively, and the gap was 50 to 66 points in the partner countries Qatar, Bulgaria, Jordan, Thailand, Argentina, Slovenia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and Croatia.

• Across the OECD area, reading performance generally remained flat between PISA 2000and PISA 2006. This needs to be seen in the context of significant rises in expenditure levels. Between 1995 and 2004 expenditure per primary and secondary student increased by 39% in real terms, on average across OECD countries. However, two OECD countries (Korea and Poland) and five partner countries/economies (Chile, Liechtenstein, Indonesia, Latvia and Hong Kong-China) have seen significant rises in reading performance since PISA 2000.

• Korea increased its reading performance between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006 by 31 score points, mainly by raising performance standards among the better performing students.

• Hong Kong-China has increased its reading performance by 11 score points since 2000.

• Poland increased its reading performance by 17 score points between PISA 2000 and PISA 2003 and by another 11 score points between PISA 2003 and PISA 2006 and now performs at 508 score points, for the first time clearly above the OECD average. Between the PISA 2000 and PISA 2003 assessments, Poland raised its average performance mainly through increases at the lower end of the performance distribution. As a result, in PISA 2003fewer than 5% of students fell below performance standards that had not been reached by the bottom 10% of Polish students in PISA 2000. Since PISA 2003, performance in Poland has risen more evenly across the performance spectrum.

• The other countries that have seen significant performance increases in reading between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006 – Chile (33 score points), Liechtenstein (28 score points), Indonesia (22 score points) and Latvia (21 score points) – perform, with the exception of Liechtenstein, significantly below the OECD average.

• A number of countries saw a decline in their reading performance between PISA 2000 and PISA 2006, comprising nine OECD countries (in descending order) – Spain, Japan, Iceland, Norway, Italy, France, Australia, Greece and Mexico, and the partner countries Argentina, Romania, Bulgaria, the Russian Federation and Thailand.