PISA 2025 shows worrying declines in reading and mathematics across Nordic education systems. Schools should take distraction seriously, but the results do not prove that screens caused the decline. The more useful response is to examine prior knowledge, reading demands, teaching and the support available when pupils fall behind.
PISA results create a particular kind of pressure. They give us a large, public signal that something is wrong, then leave schools to decide what that signal means.
The immediate answers are already familiar: more books, fewer screens, firmer rules and a greater focus on basic knowledge.
I understand the appeal. I taught for 11 years and then spent another seven as a school principal. Phones can interrupt lessons. Reading is not always easy to establish as a habit. School leaders facing difficult results need to show that they have heard the concern.
But a device ban, however sensible it may be, is not a plan for learning.
It changes one condition. It does not tell us whether pupils have the prior knowledge to access a task, whether its reading demands are realistic, whether teachers have had the opportunity to model the thinking required, or whether formative assessment is identifying misconceptions early enough.
What do PISA 2025 results show across Nordic schools?
PISA assesses what 15-year-olds can do in reading, mathematics and science. Its 2025 cycle involved more than 760,000 students across 91 countries and economies, with results published on 8 September 2026.
- Across OECD countries, average reading performance fell by 28 points between 2015 and 2025; mathematics fell by 22 points.
- Norway’s 2025 reading and mathematics results were lower than in 2022. Norway is now below the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science.
- Denmark recorded its lowest PISA performance since it began participating in 2000, with decline across attainment levels.
The Nordic countries are not interchangeable. Finland remains comparatively strong in several areas, even while its longer-term decline continues. Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland have different school systems and policy histories.
The shared warning is still hard to ignore.
Can PISA tell us that screens or AI caused the decline?
No.
PISA can show outcomes and patterns. It can identify associations worth investigating. It cannot establish that one policy choice, teaching approach or technology caused results to change.
That is not a reason to dismiss the results. It is a reason to use them properly.
Phones may be part of the picture. So may fragmented digital reading, attendance, curriculum coherence, staffing, family circumstances and the support available when pupils fall behind.
A school needs to distinguish those possibilities. Otherwise, it risks confusing distraction with a learning diagnosis.
Distraction is one problem. It is not the only one.
Phones can interrupt a lesson. So can a task whose reading demands exceed pupils’ prior knowledge, or one that creates extraneous cognitive load before they reach the disciplinary thinking it is meant to develop.
If an explanation has not been adequately modelled, pupils may not know what a successful response looks like. If prerequisite knowledge is insecure, they may struggle before the new learning has begun. If formative assessment does not expose a misconception early enough, teaching can continue while understanding has already begun to fragment.
A phone rule may reduce distraction. It does not, by itself, improve modelling, scaffolding, formative assessment or intervention.
That does not make phone rules irrelevant. It places them in proportion.
Reading is a curriculum issue, not only a literacy issue
Reading may be the most important issue beneath this week’s PISA results.
Students need it to follow a science explanation, understand a mathematical problem, make sense of feedback, evaluate an argument and learn independently. When reading is difficult, every subject inherits the problem.
This is why “more reading” is not a sufficient response on its own.
Schools need to understand the reading demands built into their curriculum. A science question may rely on specialised vocabulary and the ability to follow a causal explanation. A history source may require contextual knowledge before a pupil can infer anything meaningful from it. A vocational task can appear practical while relying on dense technical language.
That does not mean every teacher becomes a literacy specialist. It means that schools need a shared view of what pupils are being asked to read, what knowledge they need to understand it and where teaching makes those demands visible.
What should school leaders examine now?
Schools cannot solve every cause of declining attainment. Funding, curriculum, teacher education, specialist support, attendance and wider social conditions all matter.
But schools do not need to wait for a perfect national answer before looking carefully at their own conditions for learning.
Are pupils being prepared to do the work we set? Look at prior knowledge, reading demands and whether teachers have modelled the thinking pupils are expected to use. Productive challenge depends on pupils having enough knowledge and support to enter the task.
Do formative assessment routines change what happens next? A quiz, exit ticket or classroom question is only useful if it reveals something that changes the next instructional decision.
Is retrieval practice connected to the curriculum? Retrieval can strengthen long-term learning when it brings relevant knowledge back into mind for the task ahead. It becomes much less useful when it is simply a daily ritual.
Where does technology add instructional value? Ask where it improves access, feedback, practice or explanation. Then ask what it replaces.
What happens once a difficulty has been identified? Early identification matters only if it leads to timely, well-designed support. That requires clear intervention pathways and realistic capacity.
The cognitive-science language matters only if it improves these decisions. Retrieval, scaffolding and metacognition are not programmes to install. They are ways of thinking more precisely about what pupils need, and what teaching is asking of them.
The response worth resisting
The response I would be wary of is the one that feels decisive because it is easy to see.
It may be right to set clearer boundaries around phones. It may be right to increase reading. It may be right to revisit what schools mean by foundational knowledge.
Each decision needs to be connected to a more exact account of how pupils are learning, where they are struggling and what teachers need in order to respond.
The Nordic PISA results are a warning. They should prompt a more serious conversation about curriculum, instruction, reading, attention and support.
That work is slower than announcing a new rule. It is also closer to the work schools are actually here to do.
Sources
- OECD: PISA 2025 Results, Volume I, published 8 September 2026.
- OECD: Norway country note, published 8 September 2026.
- Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training: PISA 2025, updated 8 September 2026.
- Denmark’s Ministry of Children and Education: PISA response, published 8 September 2026.
- Education Endowment Foundation: Cognitive science approaches in the classroom.
Author note
Nick Praulins taught for 11 years before serving as a school principal for seven. He writes about learning, leadership and the conditions that help people do difficult work well.