The 2025 PISA report confirms a significant decline in educational performance in Aragon. Fifteen-year-old students in the region posted weaker results in mathematics, reading and science, reaching the lowest levels in the region’s historical series. Despite this trend, Aragon remains above the Spanish average in the three core competencies assessed, although the gap it has traditionally maintained over the country as a whole has narrowed.
The decline comes amid a broader deterioration in educational outcomes across Spain. The long-term comparison is particularly significant in Aragon, where scores a decade ago were clearly higher than current levels. Between 2015 and 2025, Aragon lost 38.3 points in mathematics, 45.7 in reading and 25.7 in science.
Mathematics and reading account for the sharpest declines
In mathematics, Aragon scored 462 points, compared with 486.9 in the 2022 edition. The decline therefore amounts to 24.9 points in just three years and 38.3 points compared with 2015, when Aragonese students scored 500.3 points. It is the region’s worst result since 2006 and places Aragon eighth among Spain’s autonomous communities.
The trend in reading comprehension is even more pronounced. The 460.7 points recorded in PISA 2025 are far below the 506.4 achieved in 2015, representing a loss of 45.7 points over the past decade. Aragon now ranks seventh among the autonomous communities in this competency.
The decline also extends to science, albeit less sharply. The region scored 481.9 points, compared with 499.5 in the previous edition and 507.6 in 2015. Over a decade, the cumulative loss therefore totals 25.7 points, placing Aragon eighth nationwide.
The comparison also shows that Aragon’s deterioration has been greater than that recorded across Spain as a whole during the period. In mathematics, Aragon has lost 38.3 points since 2015, compared with 28.4 points for Spain; in reading, Aragon’s 45.7-point decline slightly exceeds the nationwide drop of 44.2 points. In science, Aragon lost 25.7 points, while Spain declined by 15.7.
The results also reveal significant changes in the distribution of students by proficiency level. Some 32.3% of Aragonese students are at Level 1 in mathematics, and 28.6% are at that level in reading. At the other end of the scale, students reaching Level 6, the highest performance level, account for just 0.6% in mathematics and 0.2% in reading.
Despite the setback, Aragon continues to outperform the Spanish average. That advantage, however, has narrowed compared with previous editions and is one of the most significant findings of PISA 2025 in assessing the evolution of the region’s education system.
The Government of Aragon points to the LOMLOE
The regional minister for Education, Science and Universities, Carmen Susín, has offered a strongly critical assessment of the results and linked the deterioration to the implementation of the LOMLOE education law. The regional official considers PISA 2025 to be the first international assessment conducted after the education reform was fully implemented, arguing that the model has weakened standards, merit and effort.
This is the Government of Aragon’s interpretation of the causes of the decline, which Susín described as a “widespread and historic collapse.” The minister considers the increase in the share of students at the lowest levels, along with the limited number of students in the highest performance bands, to be particularly concerning.
In response to the results, the regional government has announced several measures aimed at reviewing how Aragon’s education system operates. These include the creation of a working group made up of professionals with teaching, management and assessment experience, which will analyze the regional curriculum and how core subjects are taught.
The Department of Education also plans to reduce the bureaucratic workload on teachers and reorganize work within schools to better address learning needs. These measures will be supplemented by the creation of a data unit to collect and analyze assessment indicators, enabling education policy decisions to be based on systematized information on student progress.
The PISA 2025 results therefore leave Aragon facing a situation marked by two realities. The region continues to achieve higher scores than the Spanish average, but that relative position does not offset the significant deterioration in its own results. The losses accumulated over the past decade, particularly sharp in reading and mathematics, make the recovery of student competencies one of Aragon’s main educational challenges in the years ahead.
