In a recent article by The Economist, the publication ranked Israel last among 15 OECD countries for proficiency in mathematics, and second last for reading comprehension
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In a recent article by The Economist, the publication ranked Israel last among 15 OECD countries for proficiency in mathematics, and second last for reading comprehension
01:12 AM • July 04 2026 IDT
Are students at Israeli universities and colleges the least skilled in the developed world? An article published this week in the British weekly The Economist ranked them first in what it dubbed the "ignorance index" for proficiency in mathematics, and second for reading comprehension in their native language.
The article focused on the decline in basic mathematics and reading skills among students worldwide, with an emphasis on students in the United States. Israel was included in the ranking – and showed particularly poor results. The article's headline and subheading were: "Students are doing worse than you think" and "Some at college or university are testing no better than ten-year-olds."
The article sought to examine claims by lecturers at California's public universities that undergraduate students arrive without the basic skills necessary for higher education.
It referenced claims of a decline in basic mathematics skills among undergraduate students over the past five years, and quoted lecturers who argued that new students do not meet "the level expected of 14-year-old children" and they are forced to re-teach them "material they should have learned in middle school." Lecturers from Harvard University also claimed that students struggle to cope with long texts or concentrate on reading.
To examine the claim, the article's authors turned to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which conducts a skills survey of working-age adults in literacy, numeracy and problem solving every few years (the PIAAC test). The authors focused on the test results in reading comprehension and mathematics of young people aged 35 and under who are enrolled as students of a higher education institution (university or college). They ranked them to determine to the proportion of students who failed the tests – that is the proportion of those who reached the lowest level in all the tests (scoring at Level 1, defined as the lowest of five levels).
Level 1, according to the OECD, reflects a skill level typical of a 10-year-old child attending elementary school. For example, a student who reached this level can only understand short and simple sentences and solve simple mathematical problems such as the subtraction of small whole numbers, and cannot cope with complex problems like calculating interest, or with complicated texts.
The Economist ranked 15 OECD member countries, including Israel. In its ranking for mathematics, Israeli students came in first place with the highest failure rates. In the reading comprehension test, Israel's failure rate was second highest after Poland.
When it came to the results for the general adult population aged 25 to 65 across OECD countries, 34 percent of Israeli adults failed the mathematics test compared to an average of 25 percent in member countries and only 8 percent reached the highest level (4-5), compared to an average of 14 percent in member countries. In the reading comprehension test, 36 percent of the adult population in Israel failed (meaning they reached Level 1 out of five, or lower) which is higher than the OECD average of 26 percent. Only 7 percent of adults in Israel reached the highest level (4-5) in the reading comprehension test, compared to an average of 12 percent in the OECD.
In the problem-solving test, 40 percent of Israelis failed compared to an OECD average of 29 percent; only 3 percent of Israelis excelled in it, compared to an average of 5 percent in OECD countries. Overall, according to the OECD, about a quarter of the adult population in Israel (24 percent, compared to an OECD average of 18 percent) failed all three tests – meaning they have difficulty solving basic problems (at the level of a 10-year-old child) in mathematics, reading comprehension and problem-solving.
According to The Economist's rankings, French and German students have the highest levels for reading comprehension, while students from Hungary and Singapore have the highest levels of mathematics.
Although 31 countries took part in the OECD skills survey tests, only 15 were ranked by The Economist. The publication did not include countries such as Chile, the Czech Republic, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Austria and Switzerland and so the picture regarding Israel's standing is incomplete. Nevertheless, among the countries which did take part, Israel's showing was particularly poor, and it was ranked at the bottom of the OECD for mathematics, native language and problem-solving skills among those aged 65 and under.
The PIAAC test, on which the article's findings are based, was conducted in Israel in 2023. It tested adults aged 25–65, and its results were published in 2025. They showed both that Israeli adults' skills are among the poorest in developed countries and that there has been a decline since the test was previously conducted in 2015.
In May, the Central Bureau of Statistics analyzed the results to determine which groups in Israel had the lowest skill levels based on performance in the reading test. It found that 54 percent of those who failed the test were men, and that the proportion of Arabs among them was particularly high (43 percent of those who failed were Arabs, while their share of the population is 22 percent). Ultra-orthodox adults also took the test and failed at a rate of 16 percent.
It also emerged that about a third of those with low skill levels worked in jobs requiring an academic degree, including in technical professions and as managers. This means that even senior officials in organizations and companies in Israel have low skill levels.
The CBS noted that 82 percent of those with low skill levels are native-born Israelis and not new immigrants. It also sought to examine the claim that older Israelis had lower skill levels, but found that although 23 percent of those who failed were aged 55–65, those aged 16–24 still failed at a rate of 18 percent compared to an OECD average of 11 percent. This figure includes students.
The Economist examined various explanations for the global decline in students' skill levels, such as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic (in Israel, schools were closed, by government order, for a longer period than in most OECD countries), but emphasized that the decline in achievements in the U.S. and other countries, including Israel, began even before the coronavirus. They also cited as possible reasons the impact of immigration, children and teenagers' reliance on screens and computer games, the decline in reading and the use of artificial intelligence.
The authors further noted that universities in the U.S. may have lowered admission requirements to increase their tuition revenues. It is possible that universities in Israel have had no choice but to also lower admission requirements due to the leniencies granted in matriculation exams since the pandemic and the war.
The dismal results in Israel reflect the state of the country's education system, which has been declining in international assessments in recent years. A large proportion of middle school students failed national assessment tests conducted last year, and in addition the education system suffers from a severe shortage of teachers and principals – a crisis the current government has made no attempt to resolve. Results for the TIMSS tests (a global assessment of students' achievements in science and mathematics) in 2024 showed that Israeli students' science levels had declined to a level not seen since 2007 – the largest decline among all OECD countries.
While the results in Israel are understandable given the state of the education system, they also reflect the levels of adults who studied in the education system in previous years. (The Economist's analysis focused on students under the age of 35). They are therefore only an early sign of Israel's failures and the difficulties companies will likely encounter when seeking to recruit skilled workers in the future, as current students in the education system enter the labor market.
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