World Bank · Education

PIRLS: Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement

Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement (%) is the share of male 4th grade students scoring at least 475 on the reading assessment. When reading Literary Texts, students at the intermediate benchmarking level can A) Retrieve and reproduce explicitly stated actions, events, and feelings, B) Make straightforward inferences about the attributes, feelings, and motivations of main characters, C) Interpret obvious reasons and causes and give simple explanations, and D) Begin to recognize language features and style. When reading Informational Texts, students at the informational level can A) Locate and reproduce two or three pieces of information from within the text, and B) Use subheadings, text boxes, and illustrations to locate parts of the text. The procedure for identifying International Benchmarks changed from the PIRLS 2001 method of using percentiles to a method based on scores that do not change from PIRLS cycle to cycle. In PIRLS 2001, the Intermediate Benchmark was called the "Median Benchmark" (50th percentile score or median), which corresponded to a scale score of 510. The 2001 data in this database were recalculated based on a 475 Intermediate Benchmark score and are different than the data found in the 2001 PIRLS report. Data reflects country performance in the stated year, but may not be comparable across years or countries. Consult the PIRLS website for more detailed information: http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/

Coverage
53 of 238 countries
Latest data
2011
Series
53
Unit
percent
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Retrieved
2026-11-07
Indicator
pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate
Interva ID
worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate

Recency

stale

data to 2011; catalog to 2025

Provenance

2 steps

as the publisher declares it

Versions

1

catalog snapshots

Citation

BibTeX + CSL

versioned permalink

Quality profile

This profile describes what Interva can measure in the data. It does not claim the dataset is accurate, complete, or suitable for a particular use.

Recency

0%

Latest observation is 2011; the catalog broadly reports to 2025, so this data is 14 year(s) behind (stale).

Method: Compares the dataset's latest non-projected period with the year most datasets in the catalog end in. Up to 2 years behind is current — annual data is routinely published a year or two late — and more than 5 is stale. Measured from the data, not from when Interva last crawled it.

Temporal completeness

33%

34 of 53 series skip at least one year inside their own span; the median series reports 33% of its years.

Method: Per series, years present divided by years from its first to its last observation; the median across series is reported. Annual periods are assumed, which holds for every series in the catalog today.

Geographic coverage

Measured

Covers 53 of the 238 countries in the catalog.

Method: Counts distinct geographies with at least one observation. Not scored: a regional dataset covering its region completely is not deficient for omitting the rest of the world.

History depth

Measured

The median series has 2 observations; the earliest begins in 2001.

Method: Counts non-projected observations per series. Not scored: a long history is useful for trend work and irrelevant for a cross-section.

Revisions

Measured

No observation has been restated in any vintage Interva has recorded.

Method: Counts values the publisher changed between Interva's publishes. Not scored: revising estimates is ordinary and often a sign of care, and the count is here so a reader citing a figure knows whether it moves.

Schema conformity

Not assessed

No declared schema or validation rules are attached to this dataset yet.

Validity

Not assessed

No field-level validation rules are attached to this dataset yet.

Consistency

Not assessed

Cross-series consistency rules are not defined yet. The obvious first one — whether two publishers measuring one concept agree within a stated tolerance — is a candidate.

2 scored from the data, 3 described without a score, 3 not assessed. Pipeline integrity: all 5 checks pass. Assessed 2026-11-07.

By country

PIRLS: Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement for each of the 53 countries it covers, with the full history.

Latest observations

CountryPeriodValueUnit
Australia201172.15percent
Austria201178.35percent
Azerbaijan201141.03percent
Bulgaria201175.04percent
Canada201183.66percent
Colombia201138.10percent
Croatia201186.94percent
Czechia201185.92percent
Denmark201186.17percent
Finland201189.79percent

Provenance

Who produced these figures, as World Bank declares it — not inferred, and each line says which published field it was read from.

  1. Produced by

    PIRLS

    International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)

    declared by worldbank in sourceOrganization

  2. Read from

    World Bank

    Education Statistics

    declared by worldbank in source

Versions

A vintage is a dated publish of the catalog. The current entry is a catalog snapshot; checksums are not recorded yet and are shown as such.

  • CurrentCurrent catalog snapshotchecksum not recorded

Related datasets

Citation

Version: catalog snapshot 2026-11-07. The record labels this as a catalog snapshot because immutable dataset releases are not stored yet.

World Bank (2026). PIRLS: Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement. Interva. https://interva.co/dataset/worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate (accessed 2026-11-07). catalog snapshot 2026-11-07.

BibTeX
@misc{interva-worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate,
  title        = {PIRLS: Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement},
  author       = {World Bank},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://interva.co/dataset/worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate}},
  note         = {Interva dataset worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate; catalog snapshot 2026-11-07},
  urldate      = {2026-11-07}
}

DOI: not assigned (not assigned). The permalink is versioned by catalog snapshot; a stable dataset DOI is a later step.

API access

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curl "https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/datasets/worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate/citation?accessed=YYYY-MM-DD"
curl https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/datasets/worldbank-pirls-male-4th-grade-students-reaching-the-intermediate/quality

Full schema: https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/docs

Open in the terminal to chart this series, compare it against other publishers, or export it with its provenance.

PIRLS: Male 4th grade students reaching the intermediate international benchmark in reading achievement · World Bank · Interva