Invalsi 2025: in Italian and mathematics one graduate out of two does not reach the basic level

The Italian school appears more and weaker according to the invalsi 2025 tests that this year have About 11,500 schools are involved for a total of 960,000 pupils and pupils of primary schoolbetween second and fifth, about 550,000 eighth grade and more than 1 million high school students. There are positive data seems to be counterbalanced by worsening compared to 2024.

School leaving

The Invalsi 2025 surveys were able to confirm a recently made public data by Istat: A significant drop in school leaving Elett (based on the official definition adopted by the EU, it is 18-24 year olds who have not achieved a second grade secondary school diploma and who are not in formation), going from 12.7% of 2021 and reaching and exceeding it downwards the 10.2% goal set by the PNRR for 2026 a year in advance. There is the prospect of reaching the 9% European target of early school abandonment by 2030.

This expansion of the school audience involves an increase in the internal complexity of the educational system. A significant share of students, who would first have interrupted the school path, today remains in the system often presenting greater fragility in learning. This dynamic is inevitably reflected on the average results of the Invalsi surveys, which tend in some school degrees to a slight contraction. Looking at it from the superiors: There are more graduates, but with increasingly lower skills. It is called school leaving implicit: It was 6.6% in 2024, it is 8.7% in 2025. The president of Valsi Roberto Ricci explained it as follows: “The enlargement of the school audience has translated into an increase in implicit dispersion, a bit like a car that takes 5 people on board instead of four but consumes more tires”.

Italian and mathematics: the painful notes

The decline in Covid years is not the worst point achieved in the tests by Italian school children. If you look at high schools, in Italian just over fifty percent of those who face maturity reach sufficient levels, in mathematics are less than half. The comparison over time of primary school results highlights substantial stability compared to last year, even if with signs of weakening, also due to a greater complexity of the school population, especially in the first literacy phase.

In the primary, from 2024 to 2025, there is a slight decrease in the share of pupils and pupils which reaches at least the basic level expected in Italian (66% in 2025; 67% in 2024), while in mathematics the same percentage share last year, 67% is observed. Reverse situation in fifth: in Italian there is the same share of students and students that reaches the basic level, 75%. while in mathematics there is a decline (66% in 2025; 68% in 2024). In average, the share of students who achieve at least adequate results in Italian is 59%, a percentage point less than 2024 and the share is unchanged, 56%, in mathematics.

The results in secondary schools show that in the second classes in Italian 62% of students reach at least the basic level (unchanged compared to 2024), while in mathematics the share that reaches the basic level stands at 54% (55% in 2024).

As for the last year of secondary school, the results of the invalsi tests highlight a setback compared to 2024

English in positive

In elementary school, for English, in the test of Reading a contraction is worth mentioning (91% in 2025; 95% in 2024), while in the test of Listening The share of pupils and pupils that reaches the prescribed level A1 remains stable (86% in 2025; 86% in 2024). In the first grade secondary school, on the other hand, the share of students reaches the prescribed level A2 is 83% respectively in English-reding (82% in 2024) and 70% in English-listent (68% in 2024). Since the beginning of the detection, in 2018, the share of students and students that reaches the A2 level in reading and 16 percentage points in listening has increased by 9 percentage points. In the last year of superiors in English, 55% of students reached the prescribed goals, B2 for technical and high school education and the B1+ for the professional one in the reading test (60% in 2024) and 44% in that of listening (45% in 2024).

Digital skills

For the first time this year in the second classes of the secondary school of second degree, the sample basis were detected digital skills of students through the European digcomp framework. The experimentation was attended by 498 schools out of 500 selected. The results obtained were positive and in line with the results to be expected for students and students of 15 years, showing a good mastery in the conscious and safe use of digital technologies.

The skills detected concerned:
literacy on information and data (89% of the student sample reaches the appropriate level);
Communication and collaboration (the share of students who reach the adequate level is 91%);
creation of digital content (the appropriate level is reached by 84%);
Safety (85% of students reach the appropriate level).

It is a very encouraging result, also because it is more homogeneous at a territorial level than it is found for Italian and mathematics.

The gap between north and south

The distance of the results observed between the Center-North and the South is still very high. The territorial differences have been there since the second grade. The pupils who reach at least the sufficiency in Italian are 48% in Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia, against 58.6 of national average and 62 of Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. In the South and in the islands, only 40% of students in the fifth helmet, against 55.7 of the national average, come to sufficiency in mathematics. They were results that worsen as the level of schools grows.

Some measures have worked, some also financed by the PNRR. “It is of great satisfaction to note the operation of the South Agenda, with more full time, more sports and more involvement of families, ten lines of intervention that worked very well,” said Minister Valditara. Difficult to think of a return in a short time of pre -Covd results.