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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

This year Serbian students score higher at PISA tests

Belgrade, 7 December 2010

Minister of Education Zarko Obradovic stated today that the latest results of tests of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that when compared to 2006, Serbian students have made progress of around 40 points in terms of reading competency and by seven points in mathematics and in science.

Tinde Kovac-Cerovic, Zarko Obradovic and Dragica Pavlovic-Babic

Obradovic told a press conference that this shows us where to put emphasis in the future, noting that without increasing investment in education we cannot expect better results.

The Minister said he is pleased with the current results of the PISA test, adding his hopes that at the next test in 2012 Serbian students will have even better scores.

State Secretary of Education Tinde Kovac-Cerovic said that the results are better than those in 2006, which means that the entire education system has improved.

She voiced her pleasure at the fact that the greatest progress has been made in reading competency, as this is the key to improvement in other areas.

National Coordinator for the PISA Programme Dragica Pavlovic-Babic specified that Serbian students scored 442 points, which is less than the average figure of 500 points on the standardised scale.

Around 5,000 Serbian students took part in a research conducted in April and May 2009, she added.

The best results have been achieved in reading competency, where the number of functionally insufficiently competent students has been reduced by 19%, while in mathematics and science it has been reduced by 2–3%.

However, the overall results in these three areas are still by 50 points lower than in OECD countries, but this can be explained by the fact that average Serbian students are one year behind students from OECD in terms of their curriculums.

When it comes to competency in reading, Serbian girls outdid boys by 39 points, but boys were better than girls in mathematics by 12 points.

On average, Serbian students achieved lower scores in these three remits than their peers from Slovenia and Croatia, but were better than those from Montenegro, Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

PISA tests assess the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired the knowledge and skills essential in everyday life. They are tested in the domains of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy and complete a background questionnaire. For each cycle one domain is focused on more than the others.