Average scores
North Macedonia performs lower than the
regional average in reading and maths, and
higher in science.
Socio-economically advantaged students and
girls perform better than boys and
disadvantaged students.
Policies are needed to help all students
succeed.
59% of upper secondary students attend a
vocational programme.
Roughly 67% of these students cannot
read proficiently
Selection into upper secondary programmes is
not equitable:
Boys are 1.4x more likely than girls
to attend vocational training
programmes
Disadvantaged students are 2.3x more
likely than advantaged students to
attend vocational training programmes
Accounting for gender and socio-economic
status in North Macedonia results in a decline
in the performance gap between general
educational and vocational programmes.
This suggests that student background, in
addition to ability, can largely shape whether
they attend general education or vocational
programmes.
More spending could contribute to higher results.
Principals in North Macedonia reported greater
concerns about resource shortages in:
Schools with more disadvantaged students
Vocational schools
These trends are also seen across Western
Balkans economies and OECD countries.
North Macedonia
Western Balkans
North Macedonia
Compared to the average across OECD
countries:
The Western Balkans tends to use more
teacher-directed instruction
* Data from North Macedonia is missing.
More teacher-directed instruction is associated
with lower reading performance and more
adaptive instruction is associated with higher
reading performance in:
the Western Balkans 5* and
OECD countries.
*No data for North Macedonia
Traditional practices such as teacher-directed instruction are more frequently used in schools with more disadvantaged students and vocational programmes
Adaptive instructional approaches associated with higher outcomes more frequently occur in schools with more advantaged students and general education programmes.
This is likely to further exacerbate existing performance disparities.