Are students ready to take on environmental challenges?

Headnote

Programme for International Student Assessment

* Student performance in environmental science items did not improve between 2006 and 2015 in most countries/economies participating in PISA.

* In 20 out of 26 countries/economies with available data in PISA 2018, students had more difficulty identifying a short-term response to sea level rise caused by global warming than a long-term response.

* On average across countries/economies, about half of students are environmentally enthusiastic, i.e., they reported having the pro-environmental attitudes measured in PISA 2018 (environmental sense-of-purpose, environmental awareness, and self-efficacy in environmental understanding1). By contrast, about 6% of students are environmentally indifferent, i.e., do not display any of the pro-environmental attitudes considered in PISA 2018.

* Environmentally enthusiastic students scored about 80 points higher in science than environmentally indifferent students, on average, after accounting for student socio-economic status.

* Students are more likely to take action for the environment when they have pro-environmental attitudes. However, the share of environmentally enthusiastic students who do not take part in environmental actions ranges from 22% to 70%, depending on the type of action.

Young people will experience the consequences of climate and environmental change more directly during their lifetime than any previous generation in recent history (Thiery et al., 2021[1]). The newly released PISA report, Are Students Ready to Take on Environmental Challenges? (OECD, 2022[2]), shows that countries and economies vary in how prepared their 15-year-old students are for the urgent environmental challenges that humanity is facing. This PISA in Focus summarises key results discussed in this report, which identifies education policies and practices that can help prepare students build an environmentally sustainable future.

Strengthen environmental knowledge and skills

PISA data show that student knowledge of and skills in environmental issues varies markedly across countries and economies. Whereas in some countries/economies (Canada, Hong Kong [China], Scotland [United Kingdom], Singapore, Spain and Chinese Taipei) most students were able to respond correctly to a set of questions on environmental sustainability included in PISA 2018 on average, in others only a minority of students were able to do so (Albania, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Panama and the Philippines).

Low performance is more pronounced among lower-income countries and economies (OECD, 2019[3]), some of which are also the most vulnerable to...