Education now says it did not have confirmation of the PISA error "until relatively few weeks ago"

BarcelonaThe Department of Education announced on Friday an error that represents a serious setback for the Catalan education system and that will cause the results of the PISA tests in Catalonia cannot be compared with other territories or with previous years. The announcement arrived at the end of July even though the Government had received an alert about the error in March, according to the same ministry. This Saturday, however, the secretary for educational improvement of the Department of Education, Ignasi Giménez, has qualified the calendar and assured that they did not have confirmation about the error in the PISA test sample "until relatively few weeks ago".

Giménez explained in statements to RAC1 that the Ministry of Education informed them in March that this incident could have occurred, but confirmation did not arrive until later. Furthermore, he defended that once they had confirmation that there had been a deficient selection in the sample of students who were to take the tests, Education opened a procedure to "seek all the necessary information to clarify" the case.

The secretary for educational improvement added that they also checked that in the three evaluation tests carried out this academic year, this had not happened and that the criteria applied "very clearly meet what is set out in the evaluation framework for each of them".

During his intervention, Giménez absolved the centers' teaching staff of responsibility and pointed to a "confusion" regarding the criteria for exempting students, taking into account that during the same period of time, other evaluation tests were being conducted – those for the end of the 4th year of ESO stage – with different criteria.

The secretary insisted that the sample of centers participating in the tests is not chosen by the department or the Ministry of Education, but by the OECD. The error that will not allow comparing the results in Catalonia is related to the exemption index, that is, to the percentage of students who, due to disability or lack of knowledge of the language, did not have to take the PISA exams. The OECD sets the percentage of exempted students at 5%, and in the 2025 tests in Catalonia, this percentage soared to 23.2%.

Giménez insisted that even though the results will not be comparable, the sample "is reliable" and will appear in the report of the state results. "It is not that the results of Catalan students have been excluded," he stated.

"Devastating consequence"

This very Saturday, the association of school principals issued a statement in which they blame the error with the tests: "There are errors that compromise the credibility of an institution and leave a country without one of the basic tools for understanding reality. This is exactly what has happened with PISA 2025 in Catalonia". The school principals demand that the department "explain what happened, identify the causes, assume the corresponding responsibilities and, above all, guarantee that it will not happen again".

The teachers question how it is possible that no one detected this error in the index of exempt students and warn of the "devastating consequence" it entails: "Catalonia loses the possibility of comparing the evolution of its educational system with the rest of the world". They even find it more serious that the "possibility of rigorously evaluating whether the educational policies promoted following the poor results of PISA 2022 have had any effect is lost".

The principals criticize that they have not been informed of the situation and only found out through the media at the end of July. "Once again, the focus is placed on the schools and the management teams, who end up being singled out as responsible for a problem that goes far beyond our scope of action. Does anyone believe that 51 schools made a mistake at the same time?", questions the statement.