Salvador Illa closes ranks with Niubó after the PISA tests fiasco

BarcelonaSalvador Illa closes ranks with the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, after the Government made public "the error" in the PISA tests. "All the support", expressed the President of the Generalitat from Vietnam, where he is on an official trip. It is the first time that Illa has spoken about this fiasco, which the Department of Education made public on Friday and that this Monday Niubó is expected to appear in Parliament to give explanations. In fact, Illa has assured that the minister will "make things clear" in her appearance. The "technical incident" that the Generalitat spoke of on Friday will not allow Catalonia to compare the results that will be made public in September with other territories or with previous years.

"I want to highlight that it has been a technical issue related to students exempt from this test and not any other consideration," stressed the head of the executive in statements to the media. Along the same lines, this Saturday the secretary of Educational Improvement of the Department of Education, Ignasi Giménez, pointed out that the cause of this error had been a "confusion" at the time of applying the student exemption criteria, because during the same period of time other evaluation tests were being carried out, those for the end of the 4th year of ESO, with different criteria regarding possible student exclusions.

In an interview with RAC1, Giménez also explained that the Ministry of Education informed them in March that this incident could have occurred in the PISA tests, but that the confirmation did not arrive "until relatively few weeks ago". In this regard, he assures that when the department had this confirmation, they opened a procedure to "seek all the necessary information to clarify this matter".

What exactly happened? Catalonia has not correctly applied the criteria that the OECD — the initiators of the PISA tests — sets to justify that a student does not have to take the tests, which has meant that the sample of students who did take the exams is not representative of Catalan students who are 15 years old. Specifically, the OECD states that the percentage of students exempted for reasons such as a disability or not knowing the language must be a maximum of 5%, and in the 2025 tests in Catalonia – the last ones taken, and of which the result is still unknown – this percentage soared to 23.2%. That is, the number of students who did not take the PISA tests in Catalonia was too high for the exam results to represent the real level of students born in 2009.

The opposition demands explanations

From the opposition, Junts and also the PP have already asked for explanations from the Government, in addition to Niubó's appearance. The majority union USTEC has also reproached the ministry for hiding this information for months and has demanded an independent audit, that the executive assume responsibilities and that the Government's agreement with the OECD be ended.