TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's girls just beat boys in science for the first time ever, and researchers aren't sure it means anything at all. Results from the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment show Taiwanese females scored 11 points higher than males, reversing a historic pattern. But when the same students take high-stakes national exams, the gender gap vanishes, raising questions about whether the shift reflects genuine learning gains or simply how seriously teenage boys take anonymous tests.
Data released Tuesday (Sept. 8) show the 14-point swing, from a 3-point male advantage in 2022 to an 11-point female lead in 2025, marks the widest gender gap Taiwan has recorded in the science domain of the assessment.
That gap stands out as an outlier; across OECD countries, girls outscored boys in science by just 2 points on average. PISA, administered every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, assesses 15-year-old students' competencies in reading, mathematics, and science. The 2025 cycle tested approximately 700,000 students across 81 countries and economies.
Tsai Chin-chung (蔡今中), chair professor of NTNU's Program of Learning Sciences and Taiwan's PISA project director, suspects the gap may stem from how students approach low-stakes testing. Because PISA is anonymous and carries no academic consequences, he suggested, some male students adopt a passive attitude, with some putting their heads down on the desk and giving up entirely.
Peng Fu-yuan (彭富源), director-general of the K-12 Education Administration (國民及學前教育署), offered a different interpretation. The ministry has implemented initiatives in recent years to encourage female participation in science, he said, including inviting prominent female scientists to schools. He expressed confidence that these policies have had a positive effect.
The gender findings emerged as Taiwan posted strong overall results on PISA 2025, ranking fourth globally in science with 540 points, a historic high, third in reading with 508 points, and fourth in mathematics with 546 points. By contrast, average scores across OECD countries fell sharply: 28 points in reading and 22 points in mathematics since 2015.
The results reinforced East Asia's dominance in mathematics: seven Asian economies produced the largest shares of top performers, led by mainland China (54 percent) and Singapore (37 percent), with Taiwan third at 32 percent — four times the OECD average.
For now, the question remains open. Taiwan's girls have outscored boys in science for the first time, but whether that reflects genuine progress or a quirk of teenage testing behavior, researchers cannot yet say. The OECD's official report for Taiwan does not include gender-disaggregated data, meaning the finding has not been independently verified.
The next PISA cycle arrives in 2028. Until then, the reversal stands as a data point in search of an explanation. ◼