Finnish pupils' competences are becoming increasingly polarized across all PISA assessment areas. The proportion of top performing and average performing pupils is declining, and the proportion of low performers is increasing. The differences are visible in particular within a school rather than between schools.

It was a gray September morning when I entered The House of the Estates, where local Finnish PISA 2025 results were published. Gray were the PISA results, too, continuation to the slide that started after the 2006 study. Good to keep in mind, however, that back in 2006 Finland was on top of PISA charts.

PISA 2025 focused in particular on science, but mathematics and reading were also included, as they are each time. In addition, digital learning was included as a rotating theme. Finland was represented by 235 schools across the country and a total of 7,668 pupils. Of the participants, 87% were ninth graders. Another 12% were in eighth grade, and a small number from seventh grade and upper secondary education.

The most evident finding of the study is that the Finnish PISA results continue to decline in science, mathematics, and reading alike. In 2006 Finland use to compete for the top spot, these days our benchmark is the OECD average.

Competence Levels are Diverging

As someone working for an educational publisher, I think the most interesting research finding was about the growing polarization of competence levels. The PISA scale consists of six proficiency levels. In the analysis, pupils at proficiency levels 1 and 2 are grouped as low performers, while those at levels 5 and 6 are classified as top performers.

In 2006, 20.9% of Finnish participants belonged to the top-performing group in science, while only 4.1% were among the low performers. By 2025, the share of top performers had fallen to 11%, while the proportion of low performers had increased to 19.4%. In other words, the middle proficiency levels (levels 3 and 4) lost 8.4 percentage points during this period. The development across different PISA studies is shown in Figure 1.



Figure 1. Development in the proportions of low-performing and high-performing pupils in science between 2006 and 2025 (Source: Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture)

This observation is perfectly in line with our own research findings and teacher feedback over the years. The polarization is growing so that the top-performing group leaks into the middle group whereas the middle group leaks into the low-performing group. As a result of this, the teachers keep asking us to create more differentiated learning materials and in general stronger support for differentiation.

This phenomenon is amplified by the fact that differences in competences are primarily visible within schools rather than between them. One of the positive findings of the PISA report was that Finnish schools remain highly equal in quality compared with, for example, the OECD average. However, variation within schools is significantly greater than the OECD average. In other words, pupils within the same study group can have very different competence levels, which further increases the need for differentiation and versatile learning materials.

We have addressed this need in various ways, for example creating specific differentiated version of our learning materials addressing both top and low performers. However, our journey is far from complete. With digital tools and for example artificial intelligence we have the opportunity to take differentiation to the next level.

Santtu Toivonen, Lead Insight Manager at Sanoma Pro

*This post was first published (in Finnish) in Sanoma Pro's blog.