Tekin: We surpassed the OECD average in environmental science with 494 points in PISA 2025

Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin announced the results of PISA 2025, which measured environmental science for the first time, at COP29 in Antalya: Türkiye scored 494 points, above the OECD average of 480, ranking 17th among 85 countries and 12th among OECD countries.

Tekin spoke at the session titled "COP29 Youth and Education Day – Evidence-Based Monitoring, Experience Sharing and Cooperation in Green Education," held in the Special Events Hall in the Blue Zone as part of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The minister reported that the share of students who want to pursue an environment-related profession has reached 78.5 percent, and that Türkiye is above the OECD average in the learning opportunities schools offer on the environment.

According to PISA 2025 data, participation in recycling programs in schools reached 99.2 percent. Tekin presented this figure as an indicator of how widespread environmental awareness is in education, and said that in the Türkiye Yüzyılı Maarif Modeli they aim not to be content with teaching the value as knowledge but to turn it into behavior. He stated that the Environmental Education and Climate Change course taught in primary and middle schools provides the scientific basis for these efforts.

Recalling that the OECD will regularly measure climate literacy in all participating countries starting from the PISA 2029 cycle, Tekin announced that Türkiye will not be content with being a country that is measured, and will contribute its own experience to the debates on how the measurement should be carried out. A climate literacy subscale will be added to the Monitoring and Evaluation of Academic Skills Research (ABİDE), which is conducted in grades 4, 8 and 10 at two-year intervals. Türkiye was elected co-coordinator for the first two-year period, together with the OECD and Global Education Monitoring Report teams, in the Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group under the Green Education Partnership.

Regarding children left without schools by war, Tekin said, "I believe that a world in which no child is erased from their school or from the records is possible only through peace," and called on all countries to show the will to protect schools and teachers from becoming targets of war.

OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher, who took part in the session, said, "Türkiye is the fastest-growing, fastest-improving education system in the OECD region." Schleicher also recalled that the concept of climate literacy was born at COP29 under Azerbaijan's leadership. The panel section of the session was moderated by Deputy Minister of National Education Celile Eren Ökten; Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Science and Education Hasan Hasanlı, Kyrgyz Deputy Minister of Education Nadira Dzhusupbekova and the First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education of Uzbekistan took part in the panel.