A critical misstep in Catalonia's handling of the PISA educational assessment has triggered political fallout, leaving the region unable to compare its students' performance with previous years or other territories. The Catalan Education Department, led by Esther Niubó of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), is under intense scrutiny after the proportion of students exempted from the 2025 PISA test reached 23.2%, far above the 5% threshold cited in the assessment rules. The episode has kept Catalonia out of the OECD's comparative reporting, leaving its results unavailable for comparison with those of other regions.
PISA assesses 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science, and its international comparisons depend on a representative student sample. Niubó addressed the issue during an urgent session at the Catalan Parliament, saying an internal investigation was under way. She suggested that the overlap of two major assessments, the PISA test and the Generalitat's own end-of-stage exams for students in the fourth year of compulsory secondary education (ESO), may have confused schools about exemption criteria. That confusion, she said, led to a much higher rate of student exemptions than allowed and undermined the integrity of the sample.
Opposition parties, including Junts per Catalunya, the People's Party (PP), Vox and Aliança Catalana, have called for Niubó's resignation, accusing her of shifting blame to schools instead of accepting responsibility for a failure that disrupts the historical data series. They argue the problem reflects a technical glitch and deeper failures in internal oversight and political leadership. School administrators have also voiced anger at being implicated. The Association of Public Education Leaders of Catalonia (Associació de Directius de l’Educació Pública de Catalunya) has pointed to shortcomings in supervision mechanisms rather than errors at the school level.
The controversy also concerns the handling of warnings before the reporting failure became public. At an education-system review reported by El Periódico on October 23, 2026, Joan Manuel del Pozo, president of the Catalonia Education Council (Consell d’Educació de Catalunya), said the episode remained surrounded by unanswered questions, including why seven warnings reportedly sent by Spain's Ministry of Education were not acted upon. That account has intensified scrutiny of departmental monitoring and how concerns were escalated, alongside questions about the original sampling error.
The Education Department has begun implementing corrective measures, including detailed protocols for each assessment process, alert thresholds for sampling issues and centralized validation of student exemptions. Niubó reported that these procedures have already reduced exemption rates to 6% in other recent tests. A new Commission for the Coordination of Tests and Evaluation Studies has also been created to oversee educational assessments across Catalonia. The official order establishing the commission, published the Friday before the government publicly addressed the PISA issue, formed part of the department's response.
During the parliamentary session, Niubó stressed that the investigation was not complete and that responsibilities would be determined once the facts were clear. She also said that when the OECD notified the Generalitat in March, it indicated that methodological requirements had not been met, without specifying the full impact on the historical data series or the September publication of results. Opposition members have questioned whether other officials, including Presidency Councillor Albert Dalmau, should also be held accountable, particularly since Niubó was on medical leave when the issue came to light.
The controversy comes at a sensitive time for the Catalan government, which had previously criticized its predecessor over poor PISA results in 2022. The Generalitat initially blamed that outcome on an overrepresentation of immigrant students in the sample, a claim it later retracted. Opposition parties cite that episode as evidence of recurring management and oversight concerns within the Education Department. A Via Empresa analysis has also contrasted Catalonia's performance above the average of other European Union regions in 2015 with results below that comparison point in 2022. The missing current-cycle comparison breaks the account of the region's trajectory. The situation has reignited debate over the reliability of educational assessments and the need for strong oversight, echoing concerns raised in other political disputes in Catalonia. For further context on how Catalan officials have challenged institutional decisions in the past, see this related report on legal appeals by regional leaders: Catalan leaders' legal challenge against the Tribunal de Cuentas.
The PISA failure has also become part of a wider review of Catalonia's education system. On October 23, 2026, political-party representatives met with the Consell d’Educació de Catalunya at the Department of Education. Del Pozo chaired the review, while Niubó participated for the Generalitat. The process is intended to develop practical measures addressing the system's basic concerns; as Del Pozo put it, the debate would seek “practical measures that change the discontent.” A second meeting of the working group formed around a broader education “pact of stability” was also held at the department in October. Political parties, the education administration and the council met to discuss the future of education in Catalonia.
The PISA episode is both a sampling failure and a test of institutional accountability. It has interrupted comparisons across cycles, prompted questions about why warnings were not acted upon and added urgency to a broader debate over assessment practice, departmental oversight and confidence in Catalonia's education system. The investigation's findings and the measures developed through the system review will shape the next stage of that debate.
