From the PILNA 2021 results, SPC-EQAP has identified key findings that may justify immediate action and attention. These findings underpin the more specific recommendations at the stakeholder level.

1. Learners and their performance
   1. Student performance decreased in many areas from 2018 to 2021.
   2. Numeracy performance decreases were larger than reading and writing performance decreases.
   3. Reading performance is struggling to increase substantially over time.
   4. Year four writing performance increased substantially from 2018 to 2021.
   5. Girls scored higher than boys in numeracy, reading and writing, as they did in past PILNA cycles.
   6. Early childhood education attendance, parental education, household wealth, language of assessment, caregiver support, student attitudes to subjects/school, and well-being are associated with student performance in literacy and numeracy.
2. Student experiences
   1. Student behavioural and cognitive challenges affect a substantial number of students.
   2. Many students are experiencing challenges to their well-being.
3. Pacific learning environments
   1. Some schools have inadequate or insufficient infrastructure.
   2. Some schools have inadequate or insufficient amounts of instruction materials.
   3. Some schools have too few teachers, particularly qualified teachers, and experience challenges with teacher absenteeism.
   4. School closures affected the instruction of many students in the region and different countries may have been disproportionately affected by these closures.
   5. Physical continuity of learning measures was more common than non-physical measures, including digital measures.
4. Experiences of the education workforce
   1. Many teachers do not have enough time to spend with slow learners.
   2. More teachers appear to be confident in teaching numeracy than literacy.
   3. Fewer teachers are confident teaching unstructured literacy areas (such as quality of ideas in writing) compared with structured literacy areas (such as spelling and vocabulary).
   4. Many teachers are experiencing well-being challenges because of their job.
   5. Many school leaders are experiencing well-being challenges because of their job.
   6. Many teachers and school leaders may not be satisfied with their salaries.