PISA 2025: Malaysian Students Show Strong Willingness To Learn
PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), Sept 9 (Bernama) -- Malaysian students have demonstrated a strong willingness to learn, with the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025 results showing positive attitudes towards learning, alongside areas where academic performance can be further strengthened.
Malaysia’s country profile for the assessment, released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday, found that 80 per cent of Malaysian 15-year-old students agreed or strongly agreed that they were “curious about many different things”, compared with 73 per cent across OECD countries, while 79 per cent said they “apply additional effort when work becomes challenging” (OECD average: 60 per cent).
Between 2022 and 2025, the share of students who reported being curious about many different things increased by eight percentage points, while those who reported applying additional effort when work became challenging rose by 8.2 percentage points.
The percentage who agreed that school had been a waste of time also fell by 13.2 percentage points.
About 46 per cent of students reported that they often or very often planned their approach to studying, while 52 per cent said they asked themselves questions about the material to check whether they had understood it (OECD averages: 37 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively).
Malaysian students also showed a strong willingness to seek help, with 92 per cent saying they asked their teachers for help when needed, while 94 per cent turned to classmates when they did not fully understand something (OECD averages: 77 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively).
While these positive indicators provide important insights into students’ attitudes towards learning, mathematics performance eased compared with 2022, while reading and science performance remained stable despite a broader global decline.
“Compared with 2018, average scores were lower in all three subjects,” the report stated.
The OECD noted that “curiosity, perseverance and valuing school are most often associated with higher science performance”, highlighting the importance of positive learning attitudes in supporting student achievement.
The findings raise a broader question of how these positive learning dispositions can be translated more effectively into deeper understanding and stronger academic outcomes.
Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, said this challenge was becoming more complex as students navigated an environment increasingly saturated with information and AI-generated content.
“In a world overflowing with information, and increasingly with AI-generated information, the scarce resource is no longer information itself. The scarce resource is attention,” he stressed.
Schleicher shared that the ability to distinguish reliable information from misinformation would be among the most important forms of literacy in the 21st century.
He said Malaysia, having been less exposed to some technological trends than many other countries, had an opportunity to learn from mistakes made elsewhere, particularly as technology increasingly enters classrooms.
Schleicher likened learning to physical exercise, stressing that students must undertake the cognitive effort themselves, including struggling with difficult questions, making mistakes and revising their thinking.
“We do not become fit by watching sports. We become fit by doing the exercise ourselves. And learning works in the same way,” he said.
PISA 2025 found that 56 per cent of Malaysian students used AI chatbots to help them learn at least once a week, higher than the OECD average of 46 per cent. They also reported using AI for preliminary research, summarising texts and drafting writing assignments.
With easier access to information, the challenge for schools is therefore no longer simply helping students find answers, but ensuring they can assess information, understand it and apply it independently.
Schleicher said technology should support rather than remove the cognitive effort required for learning, stressing that “the goal should not be to make learning effortless... the goal should be to make learners stronger.”
He also called for clear governance over the use of smartphones and AI in schools, saying their use should be intentional, with teachers equipped to decide when technology should be used, why it should be used and when it should be put away.
Ultimately, the PISA findings do not suggest Malaysian students are losing interest in education.
Rather, they highlight an important opportunity: Malaysian students demonstrate curiosity, perseverance, and a strong willingness to seek help, and the next challenge is to ensure these positive qualities translate into deeper understanding, critical thinking, and stronger learning outcomes.
-- BERNAMA
