Australian students have been ranked among the world’s most disruptive in classrooms, with the latest international PISA results highlighting concerns over discipline, absenteeism and digital distractions in schools.
The 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), assessed 15-year-olds across 91 countries and economies.
Australia ranked 69th out of 80 education systems measured for classroom disciplinary climate, despite showing some improvement compared with previous assessments.
The findings showed that 41% of Australian students reported noise and disorder during most or all science lessons, compared with an OECD average of 31%.
Around 34% said their classmates did not listen to what teachers were saying, while 21% reported that students could not work well during most or all lessons.
Digital distractions were also highlighted as a concern, with 39% of Australian students saying their classmates were often distracted by digital devices during science lessons, compared with an OECD average of 28%.
Australian students reported spending an average of 2.6 hours a day using digital devices at school for learning, compared with an OECD average of 1.7 hours.
However, the OECD data does not show a statistically significant link between classroom digital distraction and science performance specifically in Australia, even though such distraction was associated with lower science scores across OECD countries overall.
Absenteeism was another concern, with 44% of Australian students saying they had skipped at least one day of school during the two weeks before the PISA assessment, around twice the OECD average.
Despite the concerns, Australia remains a relatively strong international academic performer and continues to score above the OECD average. The latest results nevertheless showed the country’s reading and mathematics scores falling to their lowest levels since Australia began participating in PISA.
Australian Education Minister Jason Clare said the findings pointed to a need to reduce screen time in schools, calling for a “digital detox” while stressing that technology and digital skills still have a role in education. (Newswire)