Argentina's Ministry of Education released the results of the 2025 Aprender assessments in early 2026 — the national standardized test that measures student learning in math and reading for grades 3 and 6 of primary school and years 2 and 5 of secondary school. The findings confirm a trend that has been taking shape since 2022: a gradual recovery in math proficiency that has not been enough to make up for pandemic-era learning loss, and a persistent stagnation in reading comprehension that disproportionately affects provinces with the highest levels of social vulnerability.
Math improves; reading marks time
In math, the share of 6th-grade students reaching satisfactory or advanced performance levels rose to 43.2% in 2025, up from 40.1% in 2023 and 37.8% in 2021. The improvement is real, but the data still reveal that more than half of students completing primary school have not mastered the math content expected for their grade level. In reading, the picture is more concerning: only 53.8% of 6th-graders reached satisfactory levels, virtually unchanged from 53.4% in 2023, pointing to an entrenched stagnation in literacy development. The gender gap persisted across both subjects: girls outperformed boys in reading comprehension, while boys posted higher scores in math. For an interactive breakdown of historical Aprender results by province, grade level, and subject, visit our Aprender tests dashboard.
The territorial divide and the weight of budget cuts
One of the most significant findings from the 2025 assessment cycle is the persistence — and in some cases widening — of the performance gap between provinces. Jurisdictions in the northeast (Chaco, Corrientes, Formosa, Misiones) and northwest (Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán) continue to record the lowest shares of students reaching satisfactory levels in both subjects, while Buenos Aires City, Córdoba, and Santa Fe concentrate the best results. This territorial disparity is not new, but the fiscal austerity of 2024–2025 — which involved real cuts in federal transfers to provinces for education and in national scholarship and school assistance programs — raises legitimate questions about whether the gradual improvements seen in recent years can be sustained. In our public spending dashboard you can track the real evolution of education expenditure as a share of GDP and relative to other budget categories.
The 2025 Aprender data also document a strong correlation between the socioeconomic context of schools and academic outcomes: students attending schools in favorable settings consistently score higher than peers in disadvantaged settings, regardless of province. This structural relationship between poverty and learning is one of the central challenges the Argentine education system faces heading into the next assessment cycle. Data from the school health survey complement this picture by showing how physical and mental wellbeing also shape adolescent academic performance.
Beyond the numbers, the 2025 Aprender results pose a fundamental question: is it possible to improve education quality sustainably without growing investment and without targeted policies to address territorial inequalities? The evidence accumulated over recent years suggests that gradual gains are achievable, but insufficient to close structural gaps that are measured in decades, not electoral terms.
Sources: Ministry of Education of Argentina, National Directorate of Information and Statistics on Educational Quality (DINIECE), Aprender 2025 assessment.
