Philippines only country where rich-poor gap in reading gains widened in PISA 2025
While Filipino students showed overall improvement in the 2025 PISA reading scores, the gap between the wealthiest and poorest students widened significantly. The Philippines is the only country where this socio-economic disparity in reading gains increased rather than narrowed.
Why it matters
The data underscores persistent educational inequality and the uneven distribution of academic progress across different socio-economic classes in the Philippines.
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 2:26 p.m.) - Filipino students of every background achieved better reading scores in the 2025 PISA than in 2022. But the increase among the richest students was almost three times that of the poorest.
The 2025 PISA results, released Tuesday, September 8, show that the Philippines was the only country in the world where the gap in reading improvement between the wealthiest and poorest students grew wider over the past three years, as elsewhere it narrowed or stayed the same.
Reading scores among the wealthiest quarter of Filipino students who took the PISA rose by 41 points from 376 to 417 between 2022 and 2025. Among the poorest, however, the improvement was only by 15 points.
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