Over the past 20 years, Australia's results in maths and science have largely flat-lined, while other countries improved.
This means from 2011 to 2015, Australia's ranking for Year 4 maths dropped 10 places. For Year 8, maths and science rankings dropped five places to 17th.
The results have reignited debate about the need for reform not just in education policy and spending, but also in the approach to maths and science.
Professor Nalini Joshi is a past president of the Australian Mathematical Society and is currently with the University of Sydney's School of Mathematics and Statistics.
She has labelled the 2015 results from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study "abysmal".
"Australia has basically remained level while other countries have accelerated past us," she told SBS.
"If you look at what we want for our future society, we want growth."
Australia is now middle of the pack after 20 years of testing, lagging behind countries including Kazakhstan, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The study shows that between one-quarter and one-third of Year 4 and Year 8 students did not achieve the intermediate international benchmarks in maths or science.
For Australia's Asian neighbours such as Singapore and South Korea, those figures were in the single digits.
"It's not to do necessarily with coaching and hours and hours spent after school every day. I know some extraordinarily gifted people who are doing very well with mathematics, who've never had any kind of coaching," Professor Joshi said.
The federal government said the results will be raised in talks with states and territories about school funding beyond 2017.
But Professor Joshi said she does not think throwing more money at the problem of poor maths and science results is a solution, rather a big picture approach is needed.
"It's to do with the freedom to fail. That is, we want to be able to allow children to create their own understanding with mathematical ideas," she said.
"I think what you might be asking for is a way of understanding how to become more creative as a thinker in mathematics, or a more passionate engager with mathematical ideas.
"If you look at what's happening now, there is so much of an issue with confidence - confidence levels within the teaching profession and within the children, confidence levels within parental engagement."
