While the governments in the region are preoccupied with positions of power, roles, coalitions, and the distribution of political spoils, a society is growing up right before their eyes that remains uneducated.
The results of the PISA 2025 study show that in Montenegro, nearly 40 percent of 15-year-olds do not even reach the basic level of scientific literacy. In Serbia, the figure is 43 percent. In North Macedonia the rate climbs to 64.3 percent, and in Kosovo it reaches 78.6 percent.
In OECD countries, about 26 percent of students fall short.
These are not figures that a responsible government should simply read, briefly comment on, and then forget until the next round of testing. Because PISA does not test how many definitions a student has managed to memorize. It tests whether they can understand a problem, interpret data, connect facts, and apply what they have learned.
In other words, it doesn’t just tell us what our schools are like. It tells us what kind of society we are actually creating.
These children will soon be enrolling in college, looking for jobs, running businesses, working in institutions, voting, and making decisions on which we will all depend. We will expect them to grasp complex problems, tell fact from manipulation, and take responsibility for the tasks we entrust to them.
But what have we offered them so far?
A system that cares more about who will be the school principal than what the children in that school will learn. A state that cares more about which party a ministry belongs to than what results it achieves. A government that cares more about who controls an institution than whether that institution actually serves the citizens.
For years, we’ve heard who got which seat, as if the distribution of roles were the nation’s greatest interest. Education is discussed solemnly, mostly in front of cameras and at the start of the school year. But when the numbers reveal the true state of affairs, accountability gets lost amid press releases, strategies, and promises.
For ten or fifteen years, we’ve been saying we lack qualified personnel. We’re surprised that institutions aren’t functioning, that companies can’t find capable people, and that a large part of society has a hard time distinguishing data from opinion, arguments from slogans, and facts from manipulation.
We act as if all of this has happened to us out of the blue. It hasn’t. It’s happening right now, before our very eyes.
A school that sends students out with a diploma but no ability to understand or draw conclusions has failed its purpose. It has only issued a certificate stating that you exist.
Sources: OECD—PISA 2025, Montenegro; OECD—PISA 2025, Serbia; OECD—Education GPS, North Macedonia; OECD—Education GPS, Kosovo.
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