The UAE ranked first in the Arab world in the PISA 2025 results, improving in science, mathematics and reading.
The United Arab Emirates has come out on top across the Arab world in the latest round of the Programme for International Student Assessment, known as PISA. The 2025 results placed the country first regionally in science, mathematics and reading, and marked gains in all three subjects.
PISA is run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and it measures how well 15-year-olds can apply what they have learned to real-world problems. It is held every few years, and its results are watched closely by education systems trying to benchmark themselves against the rest of the world.
For the UAE, the headline was not just the regional ranking but the direction of travel. The country’s students improved their average scores across the board, at a time when many systems have struggled to recover ground lost in recent years.
UAE PISA 2025 Scores Rise in Science, Maths and Reading
The gains were spread across the three core areas. UAE students improved their average performance in science by 26 points, in mathematics by 21 points, and in reading by 15 points. The improvement put the UAE among only eight countries and economies, out of 91 taking part, to raise their scores in all three subjects at once.
The assessment drew on a large sample inside the country. A total of 34,639 students from 1,070 schools took part, giving the results a broad base across the UAE’s education system. The exercise was carried out under the supervision of the OECD, which sets the framework and marks the outcomes on a common scale.
That combination of a top regional ranking and improvement in every subject is what officials pointed to as the standout result. Rather than holding steady, the UAE moved up on all three measures in the same cycle, a pattern few other participants managed. The result adds to the country’s standing as a regional leader in schooling, tied to its stated goal of shifting toward a knowledge-based economy.
Digital and AI Skills in UAE Schools Stand Out
The 2025 round also looked at how students handle technology, and the UAE figures stood out there too. According to the results, 96.3 percent of pupils in the UAE receive guidance on the use of digital devices in their schools. A further 81.7 percent are taught how to assess information generated by artificial intelligence.
Those numbers reflect a wider push to build digital and AI skills into classrooms across the country. As tools that generate text and images become more common, the ability to judge what they produce has become part of the conversation around what students need to learn, and the UAE’s figures placed it well ahead on that front.
The emphasis on evaluating AI-generated information is a relatively new addition to the picture that assessments like PISA capture. Its inclusion points to how quickly the skills expected of students have shifted, and the UAE’s results suggest its schools have moved to keep pace.
With the next PISA cycle still years away, the 2025 figures give the UAE a set of numbers to defend and improve on. Topping the Arab world across science, mathematics and reading, and gaining ground in each, the country goes into the coming years with a clear benchmark to build on.
