Reading proficiency among students in South Korea and other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has fallen sharply over the past three years. Education experts attribute the decline in part to increased consumption of short-form video as digital devices become more widespread.
South Korean 15-year-olds scored an average of 501 points in reading in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025, according to results released by the Ministry of Education on the 8th. That marks a 14-point drop from 515 points in the previous survey. The decline stands out because reading scores had held steady in recent years, at 517 points in 2015 and 514 points in 2018. Among OECD member countries, the average reading score also fell steeply, from 476 points in 2022 to 461 points in 2025, indicating that declining literacy is a global phenomenon.
Singapore posted the highest reading score at 535 points, followed by China at 527 points, where only students in Beijing, Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang took part in the survey. South Korea ranked fifth in reading, behind Taiwan at 508 points and Japan at 503 points.
Experts point to the spread of digital devices and rising screen time as factors behind the weaker reading performance. "In a digital environment, long and complex texts made up of written words are becoming unfamiliar territory," said Cho Sang-sik, a professor of education at Dongguk University. "Alongside expanding artificial intelligence and digital education, we need to strengthen traditional reading instruction such as reading books, comprehension and summarizing." Bae Sang-hoon, a professor of education at Sungkyunkwan University, said students appear to have lost some ability to follow the logical development of long texts as they grow accustomed to rapidly consuming short, visual content such as video shorts. "But rather than blocking the use of digital tools, education should have students read polished long-form texts, grasp the message and the logic, and then form their own concepts and perspectives," the professor said.
In other areas, South Korean students continued to perform strongly, ranking around seventh worldwide in science and mathematics. The average science score was 526 points, seventh among OECD member countries, while mathematics came in at 522 points, sixth globally. Both rankings were in line with previous years. Compared with the 2022 survey, however, South Korean students' science scores fell 2 points and mathematics scores fell 5 points, a modest decline in achievement. Over the same period, science scores across OECD member countries dropped 3 points and mathematics scores dropped 9 points, steeper declines than in South Korea.
