The OECD has conducted four PISA reading tests—in 2000, 2003, and 2006, and 2009.
In Canada, the proportion of students with low-level reading skills keeps going up. In 2000, the first year of testing, the proportion of students with low-level reading skills was 27.6 per cent. This share rose to 27.9 per cent in the second test in 2003, and again to 28.9 per cent in the third test in 2006, and yet again to 30.5 per cent in 2009.
Despite the rise in students with low-level reading skills in Canada, several other peer countries did worse, with the result that Canada’s grade improved to an “A” in 2009, up from a “B” in 2000, 2003, and 2006. Only two peer countries—Germany and Switzerland—managed to decrease their share of students with low-level reading skills.