PISA shock in the Balearic Islands: Why reading suddenly became a problem area

PISA shock in the Balearic Islands: Why reading suddenly became a problem area

Key question: Why are our 15-year-olds losing reading competence — and how is island politics responding?

Early in the morning on the Passeig Mallorca I hear children laughing, delivery vans honking and the bell of a secondary school ringing for break. At the same time, current figures are on the table: in the latest PISA survey the Balearic Islands score 441 points in reading. In mathematics it is 446, in the sciences 471. This leaves the islands behind the Spanish average (451/457/477) and almost twenty points below the EU average in reading. That is the background noise of an unwelcome education story — and it touches our everyday life.

What exactly is happening here? The numbers show a clear trend: Spain as a whole has lost ground compared with the last measurement, especially in reading. On the Balearic Islands the reading score is particularly striking. At the same time the archipelago is not entirely weak: in computer-based problem solving the Balearics score about 497 points and thus come close to the Spanish result.

The political reaction is already visible. Balearic Education Minister Antoni Vera described the results as a poor record and blamed parts of the recent education reform LOMLOE for the development. As a countermeasure, new curricula were introduced that, since the 2025/26 school year, are intended to place greater emphasis on mathematics and languages and formed part of wider school-start rules such as school-start rules such as device bans. That is a step, but it does not automatically answer the question why reading is faltering so much now.

Critical analysis: numbers do not explain why. A decline can have many causes that are often overlooked in public debate. Teaching hours per subject, teacher training, support for teachers with heterogeneous classes, early reading offers in primary school, school libraries, extracurricular reading promotion and the family language environment — all of this interacts. On Mallorca it is also noticeable that almost one in five pupils is registered as foreign. Linguistic diversity offers opportunities, but it also requires resources when targeted support programs are missing.

What is missing from public discourse is honesty about capacities in schools. Parents do not only ask about curricula; they want to know whether there are enough qualified teachers (and why teaching posts remain unfilled), whether classes are large and whether there are concrete support lessons for weaker readers. There is a lack of debate about the basics: early childhood support. Learning to read begins long before grades 5 or 10. In many conversations at the Santa Catalina market I heard frustrated parents say that there are hardly any public reading circles or reliable homework supervision, and worry about around €850 per primary school child.

An everyday scene: in the schoolyard near the Plaça de Cort I see two girls secretly sharing a small stolen comic and laughing as if it were the most important thing in the world. Reading can start like that — with curiosity and small stories. If that has no place in everyday school life and in the neighborhood, the joy risks fading away.

Concrete solutions, not just symbolic politics: first, targeted early support. More reading hours in the first grades, mobile libraries in municipalities and partnerships with city libraries in Palma. Second, targeted professional development for teachers in reading strategies and language support for multilingual classes. Third, tutoring and mentoring programs that involve local volunteers and university students. Fourth, smaller support groups for mathematics with clear learning goals and frequent interim checks. Fifth, sensible use of digital tools — not as a replacement, but as a supplement, especially in computer-based problem solving where the Balearics perform relatively well.

Everything must be measurable. Proposal: a three-year action plan with clear indicators — reading tests in grades 3, 6 and 8, training hours per teacher, number of public reading offers per municipality and feedback loops with parent councils. Such metrics help turn political promises into results.

Conclusion: the PISA figures are a wake-up call, not a verdict. They show weaknesses and also potential. In the Balearics the gap between socially privileged and disadvantaged students is smaller than in many other EU regions — that is not accidental, but a point of leverage. Those who act now must not only change curricula and issue press releases. Success comes from starting in the neighborhoods: schools, libraries, street festivals, parent evenings. If the laughter of children on the Passeig Mallorca is still accompanied by accessible stories tomorrow, the archipelago can reverse this trend.