Finland’s OECD science lead has fallen to 22 points in the 2025 study cycle. The country still sits above the OECD average in mathematics, reading literacy and science, but the gap in science has narrowed sharply from 38 points in 2015 and 63 points at its peak.
Arto K. Ahonen on effort
Arto K. Ahonen said effort explained 14% of the variation in Finnish students’ science scores. In other OECD countries, the same measure explained 3% of the variation. He also pointed to a separate sign of strain: reading literacy indicators continue to decline.
Only 41% of Finnish teenagers said they would keep completing a task even if it became difficult. An analysis of testing logs found no significant difference between the number of correct answers during the first and second hours of the exam, which suggests the lower score spread is not coming from late-exam fatigue alone.
Tesoma School in Tampere
Vesa Suomalainen, a biology and geography teacher at Tesoma School in Tampere, linked weaker basic knowledge among new seventh-graders to changes in primary education. About ten years ago, physics, chemistry, biology, geography and health education were combined into one subject called environmental studies, and he said only digital learning materials are used for that subject in Tampere.
The latest results also showed a decline among students from the highest socioeconomic quartile. Ahonen said that drop may partly reflect the fact that the indicators of the lowest quartile are already at a low level, leaving less room for movement there.
Finland now faces a sharper split inside its own school system. Differences in learning outcomes within schools have risen to a record level, while the country still exceeds the OECD average across the core subjects. The phone ban introduced in autumn 2025 could not yet have affected these results, so the next cycle will be the first place to judge whether that change alters the pattern.
