Israeli eighth-grade students exhibited a significant decline in mathematics and science performance in 2023 over 2019, according to a report published Wednesday.
The 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study report, which looks at hundreds of thousands of school students in dozens of countries, had Israel falling from 9th to 23rd place internationally in math and from 16th to 25th in science since 2019.
The survey included 43 countries.
This decline is part of a global trend widely attributed to the effects of the 2020-2021 COVID crisis. But the average drop worldwide in math proficiency of eighth graders was eight points, whereas Israel’s score dropped by 30.
In 2023, Israeli students scored 487 in math and 481 in science, above the global averages of 478 but considerably lower than Israel’s 2019 scores of 519 and 513, respectively.
Israel is not the only industrialized nation seeing such a drop.
In the United States, eighth-grade students demonstrated a similar drop, from 14th place in average TIMSS mathematics score in 2019 to the 22nd slot last year due to a 27-point drop to 488 points.
In math, Israeli eighth graders outperformed their counterparts in France, Portugal and Chile, among other countries.
Actual math proficiency in Israel may be even worse than reflected in the report, however, as the survey included neither Haredi schools, which often emphasize scripture over other subjects, nor students in eastern Jerusalem. The 2019 report did not include those categories of schools either.
The study showed that 20% of Israeli students struggled to demonstrate basic proficiency in math and science, compared to 12% in 2019. The percentage of high-achieving students also dropped sharply, with only 8% excelling compared to 14% in the previous cycle.
Israel’s Education Ministry cited COVID-19 lockdowns in explaining the drop. These disrupted learning more severely in Israel (130 days) compared to countries like Sweden and the United Kingdom, ministry spokespeople told Israeli media. The ministry announced plans to enhance curriculum standards, increase classroom hours, and address teacher shortages.
Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong topped the TIMSS math chart for eighth graders with average scores ranging from 605 to 595. England was sixth with a score of 575, followed by five European Union member states. Turkey was in 13th place with a score of 509, higher than that of Finland, Norway and the United Arab Emirates.
The TIMSS study, conducted since 1995, comes from more than 650,000 fourth and eighth graders in 64 countries who took the tests in 2023. Some 5,200 eighth-grade students were tested in Israel last year, along with more than 300,000 of their eighth-grade peers. Israeli fourth graders were not tested.
