Prime Business Africa
The world’s future engineers, coders and entrepreneurs are being made — or lost — in secondary school maths classes.
The latest PISA 2025 study, published in September 2026, shows a widening global gap in mathematical competence that has direct implications for competitiveness, AI readiness and economic growth.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelMore than 760,000 15-year-olds across 91 countries, representing 33 million students, took the test. PISA does not test memorisation. It tests whether a teenager can apply maths to real-world problems — a proxy for problem-solving capacity in the modern economy.
The Big Picture: Asia Dominates, West Stagnates
China — represented by Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang — is in a league of its own.
China leads Singapore by a massive 49 points — equivalent to more than two years of schooling. The top seven places are all East Asian systems.
Europe’s best performer is Estonia at 508, breaking the Asian dominance. The UK ranks 10th (488), Canada 11th (485), Australia 17th (478).
The United States ranks 27th with 463 points — exactly the OECD average.
The Most Worrying Signal: A Decade of Decline
Across OECD countries, average maths scores fell 22 points between 2015 and 2025 — more than a full year of learning lost. Declines were also recorded in non-OECD countries.
PISA 2025 also flagged a digital paradox: Students spending more than 4 hours a day on digital leisure outside school scored significantly lower in maths and reported a weaker sense of belonging in school. Moderate use performed better than both zero use and excessive use.
Why This Matters for Business in Africa
No African country featured in the top tier of PISA 2025. Nigeria and Ghana do not participate at scale, but the lesson is stark:
1. Talent Pipeline Risk: In an AI and fintech economy, maths is no longer an academic subject. It is workforce infrastructure. The countries topping this list are the same countries dominating semiconductors, EVs, and AI patents.
2. Productivity Gap: A 50-point gap in PISA is roughly equivalent to a 10% gap in future labour productivity, according to OECD estimates.
3. The African Opportunity: As multinationals look to nearshore tech talent, countries that fix foundational numeracy will win.
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For Nigeria, where learning poverty is already above 70%, the PISA decline should be a wake-up call. Community-built schools are not enough; as Prime Business Africa has argued, systemic investment in teacher quality and STEM pedagogy — like Estonia’s tech-infused but disciplined model — is the only path.
East Asia did not get here by accident. It invested consistently in teacher prestige, curriculum rigour, and high expectations for every child. That is the real economic miracle.
Source: OECD PISA 2025, Volume I. Analysis by Prime Business Africa.
Prime Business Africa is a business, economy and policy news platform founded in 2021 by veteran journalist and media scholar, Dr Marcel Mbamalu, after he left The Guardian as Editor.
Dr Mbamalu, who serves as Founder and Publisher, set up Prime Business Africa to deliver sharp, data-driven reporting on Nigeria’s markets, trade, investment, and governance trends for decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and policy leaders.
He also writes The Bottom Line, a backpage column for Punch Newspaper every Thursday.
Under his leadership, Prime Business Africa combines deep newsroom experience with a focus on accountability journalism, aiming to bridge information gaps between Africa’s private sector and the global economy.
