Primary school students in Ireland rank among the best in the world for reading ability, according to a major international study.
The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) tested reading skills among hundreds of thousands of pupils across almost 60 countries in 2021. The findings will come as a relief to parents, schools and policymakers following concern about the impact of Covid-19 school closures on teaching and learning.
No EU or OECD country achieved a score that was significantly higher than Ireland’s score in PIRLS 2021.
The comparative national trend for Ireland is positive, with Ireland’s mean score of 577 on PIRLS 2021, 11 points higher than the comparable national score in 2016 and 25 points higher than in 2011. As pupils in 2021 were older than those in 2016, due to the delay in testing with covid, this is interpreted as suggesting that reading achievement has at least remained stable between the last two PIRLS cycles.
PIRLS is a project of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The study is managed on behalf of the Department of Education by the Educational Research Centre (ERC).
PIRLS is designed to assess the reading achievement of fourth class pupils (or the equivalent grade level internationally) and to support the measurement of trends, enabling each country to track their own performance over time, as well as facilitating comparisons with 56 other countries.
NAMER are national surveys of reading and mathematics at primary school level. Also conducted on behalf of the Department by the ERC, they provide a snapshot of the mathematical and reading skills of second and sixth class pupils in Ireland, and can help to identify areas of strength and weakness, and to inform educational policy and practice. These assessments also provide important information on a range of factors that may affect attainment.
In total, 320,542 pupils in 57 countries participated in PIRLS 2021, along with their parents/guardians, teachers, and principals. A further 47,033 pupils took part on behalf of eight benchmarking participants.[1]
In Ireland, pupils from 148 schools took part in Autumn 21 and at the start of fifth class (Start G5). The decision to test in Autumn was due to the impact of Covid-19 and school closures.
The sample of schools was balanced by language of instruction, DEIS status and gender mix. A cohort of 4,663 pupils participated in the paper-based PIRLS written test. In addition, 4,322 parents, 4520 teachers, and 4,610 school leaders responded to questionnaires. This represented a very high participation rate from Irish schools.
The 2021 score must be interpreted in the context of the relevant caveat: the average performance of the Start G5 pupils in autumn 2021 (with average age 11.0) was 11 points higher than that of the End G4 pupils in spring 2016 (with average age 10.5). It is reasonable to expect that pupils in Ireland performed somewhat better in autumn 2021 than they would have done in spring.
Dr Emer Delaney, Educational Research Centre, one of the report’s authors said: “Overall, it is positive that reading proficiency in Ireland appears to have at least remained stable between 2016 and 2021, given the disruption caused by the pandemic and the fact that performance in many other countries declined.”
Overall, performance on mean scores and proficiency levels in the National Assessments of English reading and Mathematics (NAMER) appears stable; pupil attainment remained broadly similar between 2014 and 2021.
In early May 2021 in 188 primary schools, 5,201 pupils in second class undertook the English reading test only and 5,516 pupils in sixth class undertook the mathematics test only.
The scope of the 2021 NAMER was reduced in the context of Covid-19 to minimise the administrative load on school staff and the testing burden on pupils, while still gathering sufficient data for the study. Parent/guardian questionnaires were not administered in 2021.
The participation and completion rates for NAMER 21 are similar to 2009 but slightly below the 2014 levels. However, they are still high given that the assessments were conducted in schools when Covid-19 was still very prevalent. This is a positive outcome for the assessment.
Joanne Kiniry, Educational Research Centre, one of the authors said: “It is reassuring that despite the disruption to schooling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the results seen in NAMER 2021 point towards stability of performance in English reading and mathematics since 2014.”
In NAMER 2021, there was a larger number of pupils from urban DEIS schools than in earlier cycles of the National Assessments. The purpose of this larger sample was to provide more accurate estimates of achievement levels in DEIS schools than had previously been possible.