IEA and the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College are delighted to announce that the LaNA (Literacy and Numeracy Assessment) 2023 Linking Study Report is now available open-access online. We would like to congratulate all participating countries for this achievement.
LaNA has been developed to measure basic reading and mathematics skills at the primary school level. As an off-cycle, flexible assessment, LaNA can foster national capacity-building for education research and provide country-level results in an international context.
The LaNA 2023 Linking Study successfully established the new Basic International Benchmarks in mathematics and reading by linking LaNA to the well-known TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) scales. These new benchmarks extend the existing International Benchmarks from TIMSS and PIRLS, enabling the characterization of student performance at the lower end of the achievement scale.
Participating countries include; Burkina Faso, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, and Senegal. Key findings from the LaNA 2023 Linking Study include:
- Across the six participating countries in the LaNA 2023 Linking Study, 70% of students reached the new Basic International Benchmark of mathematics achievement.
- 55% of students across the LaNA 2023 Linking Study countries reached the new Basic International Benchmark of reading achievement.
- Achievement by gender in reading painted a similar picture to PIRLS 2021, where girls tended to perform better than boys. In mathematics, average achievement did not appear to be substantially different between gender groups in any of the six participating countries, a somewhat different finding to TIMSS 2023 where boys tended to have higher achievement than girls.
- An average of 22% of students reported being absent from school at least once a week. As in other international large-scale assessments, there was a strong correlation between regular attendance at school and higher achievement levels.
- Data from all participating countries showed a strong correlation between liking mathematics and reading and higher achievement levels, reflecting findings from PIRLS 2021 and TIMSS 2023.
INEADE hosted the report release in Dakar, Senegal on Tuesday, 25 February 2025. Highlights from the LaNA 2023 Linking Study report and its results were discussed, and the participating countries’ National Research Coordinators provided their insights into the importance of and impact of LaNA.
Researchers, educators, and policymakers have access to the report, infographics, and press release which summarizes key elements from the report. The international database will be made available later in the year.