PISA: 15-year-olds by science proficiency level (%). Level 6 by country

Countries reporting

Highest

2.0%

Estonia

Lowest

0.0%

Mexico

Median

0.5%

Years covered

2003–2018

Data points

296

What the numbers show

PISA: 15-year-olds by science proficiency level (%). Level 6 is currently reported for 50 countries. The highest value is 2.0% in Estonia; the lowest is 0.0% in Mexico.

The median across all reporting countries is 0.5%, and the mean is 0.7%.

Over the past decade 18 countries rose and 26 fell. The largest increase was in Macao (up 627.1%), and the largest decrease in Tunisia (down 100.0%).

PISA: 15-year-olds by science proficiency level (%). Level 6: full country ranking

#	Country	Latest	Year	10-year change	Trend
1	Estonia	2.0%	2018	up 35.8%	rising
2	Canada	1.8%	2018	up 14.9%	falling
3	South Korea	1.8%	2018	up 67.1%	rising
4	Finland	1.8%	2018	down 46.1%	falling
5	New Zealand	1.8%	2018	down 51.4%	falling
6	Macao	1.7%	2018	up 627.1%	volatile
7	Japan	1.6%	2018	down 35.5%	falling
8	Australia	1.6%	2018	down 49.6%	falling
9	Netherlands	1.5%	2018	up 0.6%	falling
10	Germany	1.5%	2018	down 23.3%	falling
11	United Kingdom	1.5%	2018	down 22.9%	falling
12	United States	1.3%	2018	down 1.3%	flat
13	Poland	1.2%	2018	up 51.2%	falling
14	Sweden	1.0%	2018	down 6.7%	falling
15	Czechia	1.0%	2018	down 20.9%	volatile
16	Switzerland	0.9%	2018	down 44.0%	falling
17	Norway	0.7%	2018	up 40.9%	falling
18	Belgium	0.7%	2018	down 31.9%	falling
19	Hong Kong	0.7%	2018	down 65.2%	falling
20	Israel	0.7%	2018	up 43.8%	flat
21	France	0.6%	2018	down 22.7%	volatile
22	Slovenia	0.6%	2018	down 46.6%	falling
23	Denmark	0.5%	2018	down 38.8%	falling
25	Portugal	0.5%	2018	up 80.5%	volatile
27	Lithuania	0.5%	2018	up 28.4%	flat
28	Austria	0.5%	2018	down 53.5%	falling
29	Hungary	0.4%	2018	up 35.7%	volatile
30	Slovakia	0.3%	2018	down 52.6%	volatile
31	Spain	0.3%	2018	up 41.1%	falling
32	Croatia	0.3%	2018	up 53.9%	falling
33	Latvia	0.3%	2018	up 115.3%	volatile
34	Qatar	0.2%	2018	up 68.0%	volatile
35	Iceland	0.2%	2018	down 72.8%	falling
36	Russia	0.2%	2018	down 53.2%	volatile
37	Italy	0.2%	2018	down 64.1%	volatile
38	Turkey	0.1%	2018	up 153.8%	volatile
39	Bulgaria	0.1%	2018	down 61.3%	falling
40	Romania	0.0%	2018	—	volatile
41	Greece	0.0%	2018	down 82.5%	volatile
42	Brazil	0.0%	2018	—	volatile
43	Chile	0.0%	2018	up 10.4%	volatile
44	Uruguay	0.0%	2018	down 69.8%	volatile
45	Jordan	0.0%	2018	up 149.8%	volatile
46	Thailand	0.0%	2018	down 45.9%	volatile
47	Argentina	0.0%	2018	down 59.2%	volatile
48	Colombia	0.0%	2018	—	volatile
49	Montenegro	0.0%	2018	—	volatile
50	Indonesia	0.0%	2018	—	volatile
51	Tunisia	0.0%	2015	down 100.0%	volatile
51	Mexico	0.0%	2018	—	volatile

About this data

Indicator: PISA: 15-year-olds by science proficiency level (%). Level 6
Source: OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
Licence: CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Open Data)
Coverage: 52 places, 296 data points, 2003–2018
Last refreshed: 07 August 2026

Percentage of 15-year-old students scoring higher than 708 on the PISA science scale. At Level 6, students can draw on a range of interrelated scientific ideas and concepts from the physical, life and earth and space sciences and use content, procedural and epistemic knowledge in order to offer explanatory hypotheses of novel scientific phenomena, events and processes or to make predictions. In interpreting data and evidence, they are able to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information and can draw on knowledge external to the normal school curriculum. They can distinguish between arguments that are based on scientific evidence and theory and those based on other considerations. Level 6 students can evaluate competing designs of complex experiments, field studies or simulations and justify their choices. Data reflect country performance in the stated year, but may not be comparable across years or countries. Consult the PISA website for more detailed information: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/