Canada has retained a spot near the top of the PISA world education rankings. 

Only China (which is split into cities and regions for the study), Estonia and Singapore scored higher than Canada on reading, which is the focus of the assessment. 

Photo credit: PISAThe PISA rankings. "B-S-J-Z" refers to coastal communities in China.

In mathematics, only six countries did better than Canada. 

Just three outperformed Canada on science. 

Photo credit: CMECAlberta outperformed all other provinces in reading.

But despite the excellent results, the country’s downward trajectory continues in the rankings. 

Since 2000, Canada’s scores have generally been trending south. 

Photo credit: CMECCanada's reading results since 2000.

In the latest results (from 2018), British Columbia was around the Canadian average in each area. 

Two of the outliers among the provinces are Alberta (which scored as high as Macau in China for reading) and Manitoba (which scored considerably below the Canadian average in reading). 

A similar set of results were apparent in science, where Alberta was considerably ahead of the rest of Canada and Manitoba and the Maritimes were considerably behind. 

Photo credit: CMECCanada and its provinces ranked in science.

For mathematics, though, Quebec was the best-performing province. 

More than 22,000 students from over 800 schools in 10 provinces took part in the tests, according to the Council of Ministers of Education Canada. 

Among the other findings in Canada were: 

• 15-year-olds placed well above the average in reading 

• 86% of Canadian students performed at or above Level 2 in reading, which is the baseline level of proficiency (the average in other rich countries is 77%)

• 15% of students are top performers in reading (it is 9% in other rich countries)

• Girls perform better than boys in reading (90% get to Level 2 vs 82% of boys)

• Boys outperform girls in mathematics 

• There is no significant gender difference in science