A global perspective on education news from Koin-Ed Director, Simon Uttley.
At a glance
Two OECD publications set the agenda this month. PISA 2025 recorded the lowest average performance in reading and mathematics since the programme began, while Education at a Glance 2026 focused on teacher shortages. In the UK, the fall in international student visa applications continued to squeeze university finances, and schools in England are preparing for SEND reform and new enrichment expectations. Elsewhere, Ghana’s teachers went on strike, India’s Supreme Court pressed the CBSE to soften its three-language rule, France extended its phone ban to every lycée, and the US Department of Education reinstated the 2020 Title IX regulations.
International reports
OECD Education at a Glance 2026: teacher shortages
The OECD published Education at a Glance 2026 on 29 September, with a special chapter on teacher shortages. Across OECD countries, 9% of primary and secondary teachers were not fully qualified in 2024/25. Official vacancies made up less than 4% of the teaching workforce across the 20 systems with data, but the report argues that this figure hides concentrated gaps: 11 of the 16 countries with subject-level data reported shortages of fully qualified secondary teachers in STEM, and shortages cluster in rural, remote and disadvantaged schools.
Andreas Schleicher’s launch presentation made two points that complicate the usual story. First, there are now more teachers per student in primary education than in 2015. Second, unfilled teaching posts tend to track wider skilled-labour shortages, so the problem is not confined to education. On retention, an average of 6.4% of fully qualified primary and secondary teachers left the profession in 2024/25 across the OECD.
For England, the country note reports that 2.9% of primary and secondary teachers in public institutions were not fully qualified in 2024/25, well below the OECD average of 9.1%. Iceland’s government highlighted that it spends 5.2% of GDP on education yet still struggles to staff mathematics and science posts outside the capital.
Original material: OECD report page | UK country note | Launch slides (Schleicher) | Luxembourg note (attrition average) | Iceland Review
PISA 2025: record lows in reading and mathematics
The first PISA 2025 results were released on 8 September. Some 760,000 students in 91 countries and economies took part, making it the largest round so far. Across the OECD, average performance in reading and mathematics fell to the lowest levels PISA has recorded. Reading has fallen 28 points since 2015, which the OECD equates to about a year and a half of learning, and one in five 15-year-olds is now a low performer in all three subjects, up from 16% in 2022. Science, the focus of this cycle, held steady between 2022 and 2025.
Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) and Singapore led in all three domains. Estonia, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei and the United Kingdom also ranked in the top ten in science, mathematics and reading. The UK was one of four OECD countries whose science scores rose. Oxford’s Department of Education, which ran the study for the UK, reports that pupils in England improved in science and were stable in reading and mathematics, but that the gender gap in science has widened since 2015 because boys’ scores rose while girls’ stayed flat.
Australia recorded its lowest-ever results in mathematics and reading. The United States saw lower reading scores than in 2022, but the OECD warns that US response rates fell below the minimum target, so bias in the results cannot be ruled out.
Original material: OECD press release | PISA 2025 Results (Volume I) | University of Oxford (UK results) | OECD US country note | SBS News (Australia)
UNESCO: out-of-school numbers still rising
Published earlier this year but still the reference point for global access, UNESCO’s 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report found that the number of children and young people out of school has risen for a seventh consecutive year, to 273 million. That is one in six of the school-age population. The report notes that 76% of countries have policies to direct resources towards disadvantaged schools, yet a new index suggests only 8% use those mechanisms to full effect.
Original material: UNESCO press release | 2026 GEM Report
United Kingdom
International student visas keep falling
Visa applications to study in the UK fell again in August, the most important recruitment month. In the twelve months to August 2026 there were 360,700 applications, down 27% on the same period to August 2023, and August was the eleventh month running in which applications were lower than a year earlier. The steepest falls are from China, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, the four largest source countries. Speaking at the Universities UK conference, skills minister Jacqui Smith urged universities to make the case for the UK as a destination. The sector points to the new £925 levy per international student as an added pressure.
Original material: Research Professional News | The Boar
England: SEND reform and enrichment
Consultations linked to the Schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving, closed on 18 September, including proposals for a local SEND inclusion formula to give mainstream schools more funding upfront. The House of Commons Library notes that the reformed SEND system needs legislation and is not expected to take effect until September 2029, with no changes to support under existing EHCPs before at least September 2030.
On enrichment, more than 400 schools in disadvantaged areas have been offered support from the £22.5 million Enrichment Expansion Programme. Since September, Ofsted has considered enrichment as part of personal development and well-being, with reference to the DfE’s non-statutory framework published in June, which sets eight benchmarks across arts, sport, nature, civic life and life skills.
Original material: House of Commons Library | Isle of Thanet News (programme funding) | Schools Week (enrichment benchmarks)
United States
The Department of Education formally rescinded the 2024 Title IX regulation and reinstated the 2020 rule. In the same week, Education Week reported that the administration had cancelled a further $100 million in education funding against the wishes of Congress. The department also announced the earliest FAFSA launch in the programme’s history, approved Workforce Pell Grant programmes in Florida, and extended enrolment for a student loan interest-rate reduction by three months.
Original material: US Department of Education newsroom | Education Week | American Council on Education headlines
Europe
France began the school year with phones banned in lycées, completing a national prohibition that already covered younger pupils. Students must hand phones in on arrival. Education minister Édouard Geffray called the ban absolutely essential, although some schools complained that the law came into force only a week before term. Denmark’s primary and lower secondary schools also became mobile-free from the 2026/27 year, joining the Netherlands, Italy and others with national rules.
Original material: Irish Times (France) | CGTN Europe (country round-up)
Africa
Ghana: national teachers’ strike
Three pre-tertiary unions, GNAT, NAGRAT and PRETAG, began an indefinite strike on 25 September. They cite the delayed negotiation of a new collective agreement, teachers promoted after examinations in December 2025 and February 2026 who have not been placed on new salary scales and are owed arrears from January, and unpaid deprived area allowances. One local report puts the number of teachers involved at around 350,000 and the pupils affected at 7.65 million.
Education minister Haruna Iddrisu has asked the unions to suspend action while talks continue with the payroll and wages bodies. The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service warned that the strike threatens a hard-won return to a September start, achieved this year for the first time in roughly six years.
Original material: The Ghana Report | Adom Online (GES statement) | AllAfrica / Ghanaian Times | Ghana Eye Report
Asia-Pacific
India: Supreme Court and the three-language rule
Parents have challenged the CBSE requirement, in force for Class 9 from 1 July, that pupils study three languages including two native to India. On 17 September the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Surya Kant, again urged the board to give current Class 6 pupils a one-off exemption and suggested the requirement apply to Class 6 only from 1 January 2027. The court heard that the CBSE had declined to extend relief to Class 6. The bench has also questioned the board’s treatment of English as a non-native language and asked whether schools have the staff and materials to deliver the policy.
Original material: LiveLaw | ETV Bharat
Australia
Western Australia has banned smart glasses from public schools for pupils, staff and visitors. New South Wales announced music lessons for every public primary pupil, and more than one in four NSW HSC students now takes a vocational subject, with enrolments up 20% since 2020. In higher education, the student visa refusal rate has reached a ten-year high, with refusals above 40% for applicants from Nepal and India.
Original material: Education Matters | Education Review | ABC News
Simon Uttley
Director,
koin-ed.org