Kenya Looked in the Mirror

Kenya’s first PISA results are easy to turn into a league table. That would also be the least useful way to read them.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), does not simply ask whether students remember what a national curriculum taught them.

It asks whether 15-year-olds can use knowledge to interpret information, solve problems and reason in situations that may be unfamiliar.

Kenya joined the assessment for the first time in 2025. The results released on 8 September therefore do not show whether Kenya is improving or declining over time.

They provide a baseline: the first internationally comparable picture of how Kenyan 15-year-olds perform on this particular measure.

That distinction matters. The scores are sobering. But participation itself is important.

Kenya has chosen to submit its education system to an external comparison at exactly the moment when it is trying to move away from an examination culture centred on recall and toward a system built around competencies.

The useful question is therefore not “Where did Kenya finish?”

It is: What does this first mirror show — and what should Kenya do with the reflection?

Low scores matter. The proficiency thresholds matter more.

Kenyan students recorded mean PISA 2025 scores of 335 in science, 320 in reading and 326 in mathematics. All were below the OECD averages.

Kenya also scored 278 in computational problem solving, another area where its mean performance was below the OECD average.

Mean scores provide a broad comparison, but the proficiency levels are easier to translate into educational meaning.

In science, 16% of Kenyan students reached Level 2 or higher. At that level, students can recognise explanations for familiar scientific phenomena and make simple judgements about whether conclusions are supported by data.

In mathematics, only 9% reached Level 2 or above. PISA describes that threshold as being able, without direct instruction, to recognise how a simple real-life situation can be represented mathematically — for example comparing two routes or converting prices into another currency.

In reading, 11% reached Level 2 or above. That includes being able to identify the main idea in a moderately long text, locate information using explicit criteria and reflect on a text’s purpose when prompted.

These are not descriptions of advanced academic excellence. They are basic applied competencies.

That is why the percentages deserve more attention than Kenya’s position in any ranking.

This is not a test of whether Kenyan students learned the Kenyan syllabus

PISA tests students aged roughly 15 years and three months to 16 years and two months who have completed at least six years of schooling.

In Kenya, 6,460 students from 245 schools completed the 2025 assessment, representing about 199,000 15-year-old students in school.

Students sat a two-hour assessment and answered a background questionnaire. Science was the main domain in 2025, with mathematics and reading as secondary domains.

The new cycle also examined computational problem solving as part of learning in the digital world.

This design creates both value and limits.

It is valuable because countries can compare whether students can transfer learning beyond the exact form in which it was taught.

But it is not a verdict on every purpose of education, and it does not measure the entire Kenyan curriculum.

Kenya also met PISA’s technical sampling and data-quality standards.

That matters because it means the country’s results were judged fit for reporting; they should not be dismissed as an unreliable first attempt.

Kenya is being compared with richer systems — but poverty does not explain everything

Any comparison between Kenya and high-income OECD members must recognise radically different social and economic conditions.

In the PISA international socio-economic index, 42% of Kenyan students fell within the bottom quarter internationally.

In other words, a very large share of Kenya’s tested students were among the most socio-economically disadvantaged students participating worldwide.

That is essential context. It is not a reason to ignore the results.

One of the most surprising findings is that within Kenya, the science-score gap between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged quarter of students was only 8 points, compared with an OECD average gap of 85 points.

Socio-economic status explained almost none of the variation in Kenyan science performance on the PISA measure.

That number needs careful interpretation.

A small internal gap can be positive if disadvantaged students are doing unusually well.

It can also occur when performance is compressed at a generally low level.

Kenya’s data suggest both resilience and a system-wide learning challenge rather than a problem confined only to the poorest students.

PISA classifies 26% of Kenya’s disadvantaged students as academically resilient because they scored in the top quarter of science performance within Kenya.

That is twice the OECD-average share.

The students are not the problem. The question is whether the system is converting their effort and potential into stronger applied competence.

The attitudes data complicate the story

A narrative of disengaged Kenyan teenagers is not supported by the survey.

67% of Kenyan students said they put in additional effort when work becomes difficult, compared with 60% across OECD countries.

Sixty-eight percent said they were curious about many different things.

Only 19% agreed that school had been a waste of time, compared with 24% on average across the OECD.

Sixty-one percent said they often or very often plan how they will study, and 60% said they ask themselves questions to check whether they have understood material.

Teacher-support responses are also notable.

Seventy-five percent of students said their science teacher shows an interest in every student’s learning; 81% said the teacher continues until students understand; 82% said teachers provide extra help when needed.

All three shares were above the OECD averages reported by PISA.

This does not negate low proficiency. It changes where responsibility is placed.

If students report perseverance and support but applied performance remains weak, the policy question shifts toward curriculum implementation, resources, teaching practice, language, assessment and the conditions under which learning takes place.

Some schools are asking students to perform without enough tools

More than half of Kenyan students — 54% — attended schools whose principals said shortages of educational material such as textbooks, information-technology equipment, libraries or laboratory materials hindered instruction at least to some extent.

The same share attended schools where principals reported that inadequate physical infrastructure hindered instruction.

Attendance is another warning.

Thirty-five percent of Kenyan students said they had skipped at least one full day of school during the two weeks before the PISA test; 40% had skipped at least one class.

Those figures were above the OECD averages of 22% and 24% respectively.

The findings do not tell us why each student was absent. Costs, transport, household responsibilities, health, motivation and school climate can all matter.

But learning time is cumulative.

A competency-based curriculum cannot develop competencies in classrooms students are not consistently able or willing to attend.

Kenyan students are already living in the AI classroom

The digital results make the idea of “future-ready skills” concrete.

Kenyan students reported using digital devices at school for learning for an average of 1.6 hours per day, close to the OECD average of 1.7 hours.

But they also reported 1.9 hours of device use at school for leisure, compared with an OECD average of 1.1 hours.

Forty-six percent said they used artificial-intelligence chatbots for learning at least weekly — exactly the OECD average.

Students also reported using AI to research topics, summarise texts and draft writing assignments.

Only 18% reported frequent peer distraction by digital devices in most or all science lessons, lower than the OECD average.

But in Kenya, students reporting such distraction scored 49 science points lower than those who did not.

This is an association, not proof that devices caused the score gap; students who struggle may also use devices differently or attend different schools.

The deeper message is unavoidable: Kenya does not have the luxury of designing education for a pre-digital world.

Students are already using AI.

The question is whether schools teach them to judge information, think critically and use digital tools as instruments rather than substitutes for thought.

Kenya’s curriculum reform and PISA are asking surprisingly similar questions

Kenya’s Competency-Based Education (CBE) reforms are designed to move learning away from narrow factual accumulation and one-off examinations.

Ministry policy emphasises communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, digital literacy and the ability to apply learning.

That language now reads differently beside the PISA results.

On 11 September, Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Migos Ogamba told teachers that artificial intelligence and competency-based learning require them to become facilitators, mentors, innovators and lifelong learners.

He said learners need to think critically, collaborate, innovate and apply knowledge to real-world problems.

This is not a contradiction between PISA and CBE.

It is almost the opposite.

PISA provides an external baseline against which one of CBE’s central ambitions can eventually be tested.

The caution is timing.

The 15-year-olds tested in 2025 were educated through a system in transition and cannot be treated as a clean evaluation of the fully implemented CBE model.

Kenya’s first PISA cycle should therefore be a starting measurement, not a final judgement on the reform.

TVET is asking the next question in the same chain

This week Nairobi hosted the International Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Conference under the theme “Skills That Work”.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training prepares learners for specific occupations and practical careers, but the conference’s message went beyond workshop skills.

TVET Principal Secretary Esther Muoria argued that employers should no longer be passive recipients of graduates.

Industry should help shape what training institutions teach so that qualifications correspond more closely to real workplace needs.

This creates a striking education chain.

PISA asks whether school students can apply knowledge.

CBE says schooling should develop competencies rather than reward recall alone.

TVET asks whether those competencies connect to actual employment.

The risk is fragmentation: schools designing one set of competencies, training institutions another and employers demanding a third.

Kenya’s opportunity is to make the chain coherent.

The worst response to Kenya’s first PISA results would be humiliation. The second worst would be denial.

Kenya has obtained something education systems need but often dislike: a baseline that reveals uncomfortable weaknesses.

Only 9% reaching basic PISA mathematics proficiency cannot be explained away by saying the test is foreign.

Nor should it be turned into a claim that Kenyan students are unintelligent or that Kenyan teachers have failed.

The results describe what happened when a representative sample of in-school 15-year-olds encountered a particular set of applied problems.

They also reveal perseverance, teacher support, student curiosity and significant resilience among disadvantaged learners.

The policy question is what happens next.

If PISA becomes another high-stakes scoreboard, it could reproduce exactly the exam culture Kenya is trying to move beyond.

If it becomes diagnostic — identifying where reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, scientific interpretation and digital judgement break down — it can support the logic of competency-based reform.

The strongest response would therefore not be “teach to PISA.”

It would be to make Kenyan schooling better at the capacities PISA happens to expose: understanding, transfer, reasoning and application.

Kenya looked in the mirror. The point of a mirror is not to admire or condemn the reflection. It is to see clearly enough to decide what to change.

European readers should resist using PISA as another ranking in which wealthy education systems congratulate themselves.

OECD countries recorded their own lowest average mathematics and reading performance in PISA history in 2025.

The learning challenge is global, even if its scale and causes differ.

For Europe’s relationship with Kenya, skills are also economic policy.

European companies invest in Kenya, recruit Kenyan talent and support vocational programmes.

Germany, Finland and South Korea are among the international partners supporting this week’s Nairobi TVET conference.

If Kenya is to expand business-process outsourcing, advanced manufacturing, green industry, digital services and higher-value employment, its education system must produce more than certificates.

It must produce usable capability.

That makes the most relevant comparison not Kenya versus Finland or Singapore.

It is Kenya today versus the Kenya its economic ambitions require.

PISA provides the first internationally comparable baseline.

The real result will arrive years from now, when the same question is asked again.

The policy response: Whether the Ministry uses the results diagnostically or turns them into another ranking and examination debate.

CBE implementation: Whether teacher training, materials and senior-school pathways translate competency language into classroom practice.

Reading and mathematics: Whether policy focuses on the extremely low Level 2 shares rather than only the overall mean scores.

Digital learning: How schools respond to widespread AI use while teaching students to verify, evaluate and reason about information.

TVET and employers: Whether industry participation moves from conference language into curriculum design, apprenticeships and assessment.

PISA 2028: Whether Kenya participates again, allowing the country to measure change rather than merely establish a baseline.