- December 12, 2025
- 6:13 pm
- World News
A new international ranking of the average IQ level of the population has been published, prepared by the Global Statistics account based on data from the International IQ Test for 2025. For Israel and Ukraine, this list was indicative not only because of the numbers but also because of the context in which both countries exist today.
Israel ranked 45th with a score of 99.1.
Ukraine was placed at 78th with a result of 95.4.
Formally, this is just statistics from a hundred countries. In fact, it reflects different social, demographic, and political realities.
The leaders of the ranking are expected. China holds the first place — 107.2. It is followed by South Korea and Japan with the same score of 106.4, as well as Iran — 106.3. The top ten also include Singapore, Mongolia, Armenia, Australia, and Spain. They are all in a narrow range from 105 to 102 points, forming a dense top layer of the table without sharp gaps.
Next begins the zone where most developed countries are located. Europe, the USA, Canada, and part of Asia are concentrated between 101 and 99 points. This is where Israel is located — next to India and Turkey. This is not a failure or an exception, but also not the position usually associated with the image of a “startup nation” and high technology.
Experts emphasize that the average IQ of a country does not reflect the level of science, innovation, or the quality of individual professional groups. Israeli society is extremely heterogeneous: different languages, levels of education, cultural and religious environments, unequal access to educational resources. All this directly affects the average score, without canceling the high concentration of intellectual capital in certain sectors.
Ukraine ranks 78th in this ranking with a score of 95.4. It is in a group of countries where values fluctuate between 95 and 96 points — next to Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. In the conditions of a full-scale war, such a result is perceived differently than in peacetime.
Since 2014, and especially after 2022, the Ukrainian education system has been operating under constant pressure. Destroyed schools and universities, forced migration of millions of families, distance learning under conditions of alarms and shelling, broken educational chains — all this inevitably affects any cognitive metrics, especially averaged ones.
At the same time, there is an important common point for Israel and Ukraine. Both societies live under constant threat and external pressure. And in both cases, the average IQ does not describe the ability to adapt, the speed of decision-making in a crisis, and the ability to build complex survival systems — things that cannot be measured by standard tests.
The lower part of the ranking includes countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia with scores from 94 to 93 points — Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Yemen. Even here, there are no sharp “drops”: the difference between positions is minimal and largely depends on the testing methodology, language, population coverage, and social conditions.
Observers separately emphasize: the ranking reflects the average score for the country, not the intellectual abilities of specific individuals. It does not answer the question “who is smarter,” but only records the state of the educational environment at the current moment in time.
For Israel, this list is a reason to talk about internal gaps and access to education. For Ukraine, it is another reminder of the cost of war, which is measured not only by destroyed infrastructure but also by lost opportunities for entire generations.
In such a sober context, such data makes sense — as a tool for analysis, not a label. This approach is especially important for the audience of NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, where the Israeli and Ukrainian agenda is always considered together, not in a vacuum.
