President Salvador Illa told the Parliament of Catalonia on Wednesday that the Generalitat accepts responsibility for serious errors in the 2025 PISA education assessment, whose Catalan results were invalidated after more than 23% of selected pupils were excluded.
Video: @salvadorilla / X
For pupils, families and schools, the consequence is that the 2025 assessment cannot provide a valid result for Catalonia. L'Empordà reported that the excluded pupils were students with learning difficulties.
“What happened with PISA should not have happened. The Government accepts this.”
Illa said the failure involved the handling of the sample used for the assessment. He told MPs that warnings and technical reports did not reach the Education Department’s political leadership until February 2026, according to CatalunyaPress.cat.
Seven warnings and three disciplinary cases
L'Empordà reported that the National Institute for Educational Evaluation, the Spanish body responsible for educational assessment, sent seven warnings to the Education Department to correct the problem. Illa did not give new answers in Parliament on why those warnings were not acted upon, the newspaper said.
- More than 23% of selected pupils were excluded from the Catalan PISA assessment.
- The warnings and technical reports reached Education Department political leaders in February 2026.
- Three disciplinary proceedings have been opened against three civil servants.
The crisis has also led to the replacement of the Education Department's second-ranking official. Illa defended Education Minister Esther Niubó, saying the secretary-general of Education had already been replaced.
“The replacement of the secretary-general of Education has been carried out.”
All parliamentary opposition groups called for Niubó to resign, according to ARA. The three disciplinary proceedings remain open.
Reported by L'Empordà, CatalunyaPress.cat, ara.cat, catalunyapress.es, El Periódico (CA), Regió 7, Diari ARA, El Nacional (CA), Nació Digital, Racó Català.
