The OECD’s PISA assessment ranked the country among the lowest-performing participants in Latin America and the Caribbean. The decline was particularly striking in reading, where scores fell by 37 points compared with 2022, while experts are calling for greater investment and reforms to strengthen secondary education and develop students’ skills.
Zeus Naya
The Central American nation finished at the bottom of the global rankings, 84th out of 91 in reading, 86th in maths and 87th in science.
What was particularly striking for many was in the first area assessed, where the country scored 37 points fewer than in 2022, although in the second, the decline was 10 points, and in the third, 22 points.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which focuses on measuring how well 15-year-old pupils can apply what they have learned to solve real problems, found that only 8% of Guatemalan students reached the basic level in maths, 17% in reading and 21% in science.
The OECD found that 43% of Guatemalan students acknowledged missing at least one day of school during the two weeks before the test, compared with 22% of the international average. The family support reported by teenagers fell between 2022 and 2025, from 69% to 55%; they responded that their parents used to ask them weekly what they had done at school.
A marked decline
The technical deputy minister at the Ministry of Education, Francisco Cabrera, stated that the PISA assessment shows an overall decline across the participating countries and that this is due to a common factor: the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This was the country that had schools closed, for almost two years,” explained the deputy minister, who added that during this period there was not a response mechanism to mitigate the effects of the disruption to in-person classes. Therefore, the Ministry opposes suspending the school year, like it happened in 2025 during the teachers’ strike, because it “severely harms learning.” Another factor that may have influenced the results, according to the official, is that the test was taken digitally for the first time, which entails another level of difficulty for pupils.
Analysing the facts
The evidence and the study suggest two things: that the huge loss of days at school during the pandemic, undoubtedly, has an effect, stressed the education expert Fernando Rubio.
According to Rubio, the other impact is the use of devices, and the abuse of social media are taking time away from reading, particularly from long-form, in-depth reading.
On the other hand, he pointed out, one must take into account that the educational centres demonstrated a clear effort to improve in maths, although, this has not reversed the trend.
Jorge Andrés Gálvez, director of the Educational Research Centre at Universidad del Valle, warned that the PISA test results are “a wake-up call” showing that the system needs to improve. He described the findings concerning this Central American country as serious because they show that young people are not being adequately trained or educated, even though they represent the country’s demographic bonus and productive workforce.
Educational shipwreck
The report makes it clear that the problem is not the students’ lack of motivation, but rather the quality of the educational opportunities they receive and the system’s inability to close the deep inequalities, he pointed out.
The decline was greater in private schools, which accounted for 36% of the enrolment of 15-year-olds, pupils who are at KS3 level (lower secondary education). Different reports emphasised that the problem goes beyond the primary-school classroom. If the country expands secondary-school coverage without reforming the curriculum or connecting technical education with the labour market, it will continue to produce upper-secondary graduates without the skills needed for higher education or the economy, the reports stated. PL
(Traducido por Carol M Byrne – Email: guerrera247@hotmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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