Israeli students have seen a major drop in grades and performance, according to an initial, not yet formally verified, report by the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education (known by its Hebrew acronym, RAMA), confirmed on Tuesday.
Education Minister Yoav Kisch released the RAMA report after the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the international Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results on Tuesday, with officials describing the findings as a “catastrophic event on a historic scale.”
According to RAMA’s initial findings, which the Education Ministry emphasized were not final, only 3% of 9th-grade students were considered to be fully fulfilling the ministry’s requirements in their science and technology education programs, with another 16% considered “near” full requirement fulfillment.
The number of students fully fulfilling the Education Ministry’s requirements was higher in 6th-grade English (36%), mathematics (37%), and Hebrew (20%).
These results were consistent with the PISA results, in which, compared with the previous PISA tests in 2022, Israeli students fell eight places in science, seven in reading, and six in mathematics.
Across all three subjects, Israel’s 2025 PISA results were the lowest ever recorded for the country.
Kisch attempts to delay RAMA release showcasing tenure failures
Every three years, RAMA and the Education Ministry publish a detailed national analysis simultaneously with, or close to, the OECD’s official publication.
But long after the organization had granted media representatives full access to the data, and despite the publication being known about and scheduled years in advance, Kisch‘s representatives and officials from the measurement authority still had not managed to “complete the necessary coordination regarding the format of publication.”
In other words, while Kisch could not prevent the publication of the embarrassing report, which presents his tenure as a failure, he tried to delay it until the last moment and held a media “briefing” at the exact time the report was released.
According to KAN News, several weeks ago Kisch requested that the RAMA report not be published on the same day as the PISA results.
Kisch published the results that day regardless, KAN reported, after the government’s legal advisor said he did not have the authority to withhold the findings and after RAMA told him it intended to publish the results that day.
KAN also cited the Education Ministry as saying that the RAMA findings “are under external professional review in light of the claims raised by the ministry.”
Yuval Bagno contributed to this report.
