The landscape of student wellbeing and academic achievement in post-Soviet education

This paper provides a comprehensive descriptive account of student outcomes in nine post-Soviet education systems using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022. More than three decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this study maps the current landscape of both student wellbeing (comprising school belonging, school attendance, and life satisfaction) and academic achievement (mathematics, reading, and science). Using weighted data for a representative sample of 52,283 15-year-old students, we analyze disparities across four distinct sub-regions: the Baltic, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Findings reveal significant variation. The Central Asian region reports the highest levels of student wellbeing, while the Baltic region, particularly Estonia, leads in academic achievement. At an aggregate, sub-regional level, the descriptive results suggest a tendency toward an inverse association between academic achievement and student wellbeing, most clearly visible in the contrast between the Baltic and Central Asian clusters; however, this pattern is neither uniform nor linear across individual countries. These foundational findings highlight the divergent educational trajectories within the post-Soviet space and establish an empirical basis for future research into the drivers of these disparities.