Data shows Israeli college students have far worse literacy and math levels than OECD average

28 June 2026, 5:05 pm

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Israeli college and university students have far worse literacy and numeracy than the OECD average, according to OECD data obtained by The Economist.

Among tertiary students under the age of 35 who were enrolled at the time they took the tests, 22% of the Israeli students displayed a math understanding that wasn’t higher than the level expected from 10-year-olds, and 20% of them displayed no better literacy.

Both figures are more than double the OECD average — 8% for math and 7% for literacy.

Partial charts published by The Economist, showing a list of 16 selected countries out of the 38 OECD members, show Israeli students did the worst out of those 16 countries in math, and the second-worst in literacy.