Malaysia's Education Paradox:
SPM Grades Up, PISA Scores Down

When two data points tell very different stories about our schools

8 April 2026

The reporting on the improvement scores of the national average grade (GPK - Gred Purata Kebangsaa) for SPM 2025 has sparked a few arguments among Malaysians. Several people have raised the issue of conflicting results with PISA scores. One is going up, and another is going down. Even Khairy Jamaluddin, the former sport/health minister, raised a counter-argument on his podcast Keluar Sekejap.

So what was the issue?

This year, our SPM 2025 GPK hit its best level since the KSSM curriculum was introduced. On the other side, the international PISA benchmark run by the OECD, participated by 80+ countries, paints a different picture for our country. Malaysia's score for Math and Science has been declining. As of 2022, we are below the ASEAN-6 average (others — Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

Below is the summary for both scores followed by individual scores:

† Also compiled: SBP & MRSM top results · top 25 SPM results since 2022 · historical GPS data by school.

The question being raised among those reporting on this is: are we training our children to excel at the syllabus, or are those skills transferable to novel situations, the kind PISA measures?

Now let's talk about what's really happening on the ground.

Although SPM results improve year on year, what I observe tells a different story. Syllabuses are becoming more demanding, yet many students are not building strong fundamentals in main subjects such as Math and Science. The batch that missed major exams during Covid has moved through the system without fully developing strong study habits or exam discipline.

On top of that, widespread gadget use, social media, and declining school attendance point to a generation that is increasingly disengaged.

Yet none of this seems to show up in how SPM results are reported. Whether the bar has been quietly lowered, we cannot say for certain. But what is clear is this: the reality on the ground. Distracted students, teachers buried under administrative tasks and KPIs with limited support, seems to not match the narrative that we are improving every year.

So the real question here is not whether our GPK is going up (lower numbers mean improving here). It is whether we are measuring the right thing in the first place.

GPK tells us how well our students perform within the SPM system. By that measure, yes we are improving. To be fair, KBAT questions testing higher-order thinking is a step in the right direction. But knowing what a KBAT question looks like and genuinely thinking critically are not the same. Because once students and teachers understand the pattern, teaching to the exam, isn't that makes preparation formulaic again?

PISA, on the other hand, places students in unfamiliar situations with no syllabus to rely on. This tests whether learning can actually transfer. This is where the gap shows up.

It is no surprise then that the university feels difficult for many students. Schools has taught them how to score, but not what to do when there is no formula to follow.

Perhaps this is what we should be paying attention to. Whether students are learning how to think and adapt well when uncertainty situation occurs.

Schooling years are not just producing good results. They are golden window for building foundations, shaping character and developing a sense of self.

Until we begin to value that and find honest ways to measure it, the numbers may continue to improve, while reality could quietly drifts further away.

Data sources: SPM results from Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia (KPM) / Lembaga Peperiksaan. PISA data from OECD country notes (2022). Analysis informed by ISIS Malaysia policy brief "Understanding Malaysia's decline in PISA scores" (June 2024). This article is independent and does not represent any government or institutional position.

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