Students in 171 Salvadoran public schools participating in an AI-supported education pilot have achieved results in reading, mathematics, and science comparable to the average performance of students in Germany and Sweden, according to results from the PISA for Schools assessment.
President Nayib Bukele highlighted the findings after the World Bank presented a summary of the assessment, emphasizing that the results represent the schools participating in the pilot rather than the national education system as a whole.
The assessment involved 1,198 students across 171 public schools, providing an internationally comparable measurement of their academic performance.
According to Bukele, these were not schools selected because of exceptional academic performance. Rather, they were chosen for their ability to implement the pilot based on factors such as connectivity, infrastructure, teacher readiness, and willingness to adopt the new educational model.
The program combines AI tutors and digital learning platforms with teacher support, educational materials, technology, monitoring, and other reforms designed to strengthen the learning environment.
Bukele stressed that the results do not establish that AI tutors alone caused the academic performance. Instead, they provide evidence that the broader intervention can produce strong outcomes under real-world conditions.
For El Salvador, one of the most significant conclusions is that students in public schools can reach levels of performance comparable to students in highly developed education systems.
The government now intends to use the initial results as a foundation for expanding the program, moving from the original 171 schools toward a much larger national implementation.