PISA 2022: 1.7% of Moldova's pupils are top performers, against 13.7% in the OECD

PISA 2022: a gap of 58-68 points against the OECD average

World Teachers' Day, marked on 5 October, is a good occasion to revisit the most recent set of comparable data on school performance in the Republic of Moldova. In the PISA 2022 assessment, 15-year-old Moldovan pupils scored 414 points in mathematics, 411 in reading and 417 in science (OECD, PISA 2022 Results, Vol. I). The OECD averages were 472, 476 and 485 points respectively — gaps of 58, 65 and 68 points.

Within the region, Moldova sits below Romania (428 points in each of the three domains) and below Ukraine, which was tested in 18 of its 27 regions and scored 441 points in mathematics. The difference from Bulgaria in mathematics is small — 3 points (417 against 414) — but it reaches 75 points against Poland (489) and 96 against Estonia (510). Below Moldova in mathematics are Montenegro (406), Baku-Azerbaijan (397), Georgia (390), North Macedonia (389) and Albania (368).

Comparisons over time should be treated with caution, because the sources differ in their degree of rounding: the World Bank reports 420.6 points in mathematics and 424.0 in reading for Moldova in 2018, while the OECD indicates 414 and 411 in 2022. The direction is downward in all three domains, but the decline coincides with the pandemic period, when similar falls were recorded in most of the systems assessed.

It is not only the average that is missing — it is the top

The figure with the greatest policy weight is not the average but the distribution. In Moldova, 1.7% of pupils reached levels 5-6 (top performers) in at least one subject in PISA 2022, against an OECD average of 13.7% — eight times fewer. In Poland the share is 15.3%, in Czechia 15.5%, in Estonia 20.0% and in Romania 5.0%.

At the other end, 37.1% of Moldovan pupils fell below level 2 in all three subjects, meaning they did not demonstrate the competences regarded as the functional minimum. The OECD average is 16.4%, a difference of 20.7 percentage points. Romania stands at 33.2%, Bulgaria at 38.3% and Georgia at 51.1%.

The combination of a very thin top (1.7%) and a broad base of pupils below the minimum threshold (37.1%) describes a system that simultaneously produces little excellence and a great deal of underperformance. PISA data alone do not allow the causes to be identified: they measure the outcome, not the mechanism.

The teaching workforce: 5,016 fewer teachers than in 2014/15, with 57.2% having over 20 years of experience

According to the NBS, 25,818 teachers were working in primary and general secondary education in the 2025/26 school year, compared with 30,834 in 2014/15 — a fall of 5,016 people, or 16.3%, over 11 years. The number of pupils fell over the same period by only 1.6% (from 339,936 to 334,611), so that the pupil-teacher ratio rose from 11 to 13.

The year 2025/26 marks the first increase in the teaching workforce in the series: 25,818 teachers, 39 more than in 2024/25 (25,779). That is a change of 0.15% — too small to be read as a reversal of the trend.

The distribution by length of service remains heavily skewed towards the upper end: 14,768 teachers, or 57.2% of the total, have more than 20 years of teaching experience in 2025/26. Teachers with less than 5 years of experience number 2,839, or 11.0% — a share almost identical to that of 2014/15 (11.6%). Over 11 years the system has failed to raise the share of young entrants, even though the overall base has shrunk by a sixth.

For international context, World Bank data show that in 2018 Moldova had 9.9 pupils per teacher in secondary education, below the EU average (11.8) and well below the world average (17.0), but 17.9 pupils per teacher in primary education, above the EU average (13.3). A low ratio in secondary education does not in itself indicate greater resources per pupil: the indicator also depends on the structure of the school network and on teaching loads, elements that the dataset does not break down.

Geography: Chișinău grows, the periphery empties

The map of pupils has changed radically. The municipality of Chișinău had 79,405 pupils in 2014/15 and 109,955 in 2025/26 — an increase of 38.5%. Over the same period the South region lost 21.9% of its pupils (from 50,892 to 39,728), the Centre region 14.4% (104,141 → 89,141), the North 12.1% (89,222 → 78,436), while the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia grew by 4.0% (14,959 → 15,551). The capital's share of national enrolment rose from 23.4% to 32.9%.

The differences are also visible in workload: 15 pupils per teacher in Chișinău in 2025/26, against 12 in the North, South and Gagauzia and 13 in the Centre. Staff renewal is likewise uneven — teachers with less than 2 years of service account for 6.4% of the total in Chișinău (465 out of 7,231) and 3.7% in the North region (246 out of 6,715).

The early school-leaving rate (ages 18-24) fell to 16.4% in 2024, the lowest level in the NBS series for 2019-2024 (the peak being 21.5% in 2022). The territorial gap nevertheless remains 14.1 percentage points: 23.3% in rural areas against 9.2% in urban areas, that is, 2.5 times higher.

The gender composition of this gap has changed. In rural areas, the rate for men fell from 30.3% in 2019 to 23.0% in 2024 (-7.3 pp), while the rate for women rose from 18.7% to 23.6% (+4.9 pp). In 2024, for the first time in the series, rural women are leaving school early in a greater proportion than men.

Funding: 6.6% of GDP, the highest level in the available comparison — but within a small GDP

Moldova allocated 6.557% of GDP to education in 2023, according to the World Bank. That is above the European Union average (4.657% in 2022), above Ukraine (5.14% in 2021), Bulgaria (4.501% in 2022), Poland (4.314% in 2022) and Georgia (3.98% in 2024), and twice the level of Romania (3.279% in 2022). The world average was 3.569% in 2023.

Measured against the public budget, education absorbs 15.965% of government expenditure in 2024 — more than in Georgia (12.207% in 2024), in the EU (10.682% in 2022) or in Romania (8.775% in 2022). The domestic trend, however, is downward: from 19.464% in 2019 to 15.965% in 2024, a reduction of 3.5 percentage points in five years.

A high share of GDP does not automatically mean large resources per pupil: Moldova has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the region, and the available dataset does not contain expenditure per pupil expressed in purchasing power parity. Without that indicator, the comparison remains one of relative fiscal effort, not of the real volume of resources reaching the classroom.

Enrolment completes the picture. In 2025/26, the gross enrolment rate was 92.6% in pre-school, 99.4% in primary and 101.9% in lower secondary education. The NBS series shows a visible discontinuity between 2023/24 and 2024/25 — primary enrolment falls from 107.6% to 100.8% and pre-school enrolment from 104.9% to 92.5% — a shift of a magnitude that points more to a revision of the population denominator than to a mass withdrawal of pupils in a single year.

Implications for Moldova

The first decision point concerns the target of policy. With 37.1% of pupils below level 2 in all three subjects and only 1.7% at levels 5-6 (PISA 2022), instruments for remediating basic competences and those for supporting high-potential pupils address populations of very different size; the choice of priority between them determines the allocations.

The second point concerns staff renewal. The share of teachers with less than 5 years of service is 11.0% in 2025/26, practically unchanged from 11.6% in 2014/15, while 57.2% of the teaching workforce has more than 20 years of experience. Any 10-year budget projection must include replacement scenarios, differentiated by region: in the North, teachers with less than 2 years of service account for 3.7% of the total, against 6.4% in Chișinău.

The third point is the geography of the network. The capital has gained 30,550 pupils since 2014/15, while the South region has lost 11,164. Decisions on school capacity, pupil transport and network consolidation already rest on a measurable demographic base, not a hypothetical one.

The fourth point concerns the efficiency of spending. Moldova has the highest fiscal effort for education in the available comparison (6.557% of GDP in 2023) and, at the same time, PISA scores below those of Romania, which allocated 3.279% of GDP (2022). A simple association between the two magnitudes does not demonstrate causality in either direction; it does indicate, however, that the relevant question for the next budget cycle is not only how much is spent, but on what.

Sources

• OECD, PISA 2022 Results (Volume I) — Moldova
• National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova (NBS), statistical databank
• World Bank, World Development Indicators