Catalonia’s public school directors point to weak oversight after a PISA testing error. The Generalitat avoids assigning blame. The incident raises concerns about data validation and the transition to a new evaluation agency.
School directors across Catalonia have raised serious concerns about the oversight of the recent PISA 2025 assessments, after it emerged that the proportion of exempted students in the region exceeded the maximum recommended by the OECD. The Associació de Directius de l’Educació Pública de Catalunya (Axia) has pointed to failures in supervision as the root cause, with its president, Jordi Satorra, stating that either there was no control or it was insufficient. This issue has put the region’s education data under scrutiny and prompted calls for clarity on how such a significant error could occur.
Speaking on 3Cat, Satorra emphasized that schools had followed the instructions provided and that established validation mechanisms should have ensured compliance with required parameters. He questioned the likelihood of all 51 schools involved making the same mistake independently, suggesting that the problem lay elsewhere in the process. According to Satorra, responsibility for supervising the assessments previously rested with the Consell Superior de l’Avaluació, which was recently replaced by the Agència de l’Avaluació. The transition between these bodies, which took place between February and March 2025, coincided with the preparation of the PISA tests and may have created a gap in oversight.
In response to the controversy, Salvador Illa, president of the Generalitat, has refrained from assigning blame, stating from Vietnam that the focus should not be on finding a scapegoat. Instead, Illa stressed the importance of clarifying what happened and preventing similar incidents in the future. He also expressed full support for Esther Niubó, the regional minister for Education and Vocational Training, who is scheduled to address the issue in the Catalan Parliament’s Education Committee.
School leaders have also requested that they not be held solely responsible for the error, highlighting the need for a thorough review of the entire process. The incident has drawn attention to the challenges of maintaining data integrity during periods of administrative change. As noted by Axia, the overlap between the dissolution of the Consell Superior de l’Avaluació and the establishment of the Agència de l’Avaluació may have contributed to the breakdown in controls.
Issues surrounding educational oversight and data reliability are not new in Spain. For example, disruptions in Catalonia’s public services have previously made headlines, such as when a major cable theft halted the entire R3 Rodalies rail line, affecting thousands of commuters and raising questions about infrastructure security. More details on that incident can be found in this report on regional rail disruptions.
The PISA assessments, coordinated by the OECD, are a key benchmark for evaluating educational outcomes internationally. The integrity of the sample and the accuracy of the data are essential for meaningful comparisons and policy decisions. In Catalonia, the recent error has prompted renewed debate about the effectiveness of oversight mechanisms and the risks associated with institutional transitions. While the Generalitat has called for calm and a focus on solutions, the episode underscores the importance of robust supervision in maintaining the credibility of educational evaluations. The coming weeks are expected to bring further discussion as regional authorities and school leaders seek to restore confidence in the system.
