The failures in the execution of the PISA tests could have been corrected in time because there were up to seven warnings from the Ministry of Education. These were ignored by the coordinators of the Consell Superior d’Avaluació, who did not pass them on either to the educational centers, to correct the high exclusions, or to the political leaders to redirect the situation. They never reached the desk of the consellera Esther Niubó, according to her own statement, who learned of the problem a year later. By then, the technical and political leaders were no longer working in the Department of Education.
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As a result of this fiasco, with a chain of linked failures, the Govern has opened disciplinary proceedings against two officials and a senior official for their alleged incompetence in executing the coordination of the PISA tests in 2025, which left Catalonia out of the international comparison.
Niubó: “Could it have been corrected? Without a doubt”
On Monday, the consellera also announced the replacement of her right hand, the Secretary of Education Teresa Sambola, not linked to this case, but her dismissal gives greater appearance of firmness to the political response. The change of Sambola is to strengthen “very strained managements and open a new stage,” explained Niubó.
Marta Clarí, new Secretary of Education
Marta Clari, manager of the Barcelona City Council, will be the new number 2 of the Department of Education following the dismissal of the current Secretary General, Teresa Sambola. Clari is a clinical child psychologist and social pedagogue. She has worked at the Barcelona City Council since 1990 and since June 2023 holds the position of manager of the area of Social Rights, Health, Cooperation, and Community. She has also been manager of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona and the Consortium of Libraries of Barcelona, as well as in other areas of the Barcelona city council. Outside the public sector, she was coordinator of the Pallassos sense Fronteres office.
The proceedings that have now been closed do not resolve everything, although they clarify a bit more about what happened. Everything failed. From the instructions to the directors on how the test would work to the validation of the exclusions they made on an excessive number of students. Apparently, the highest authorities were not alerted either, who would have understood the seriousness of the matter and tried to steer the situation. There was still time, but they were unaware of what was happening.
Only five of the 51 centers selected to carry out the test followed the appropriate guidelines, a maximum of 5% of excluded students, the same that presumably the rest of the Spanish autonomous communities and other countries in the world did follow. Overall, Catalonia reached an exclusion rate of 23.2%. The non-participation of students is higher since abstentions must be added, students who did not show up for the test, whose rate the consellera did not specify.
Nevertheless, the investigation has not resolved why the directors excluded so many students. What is the reason they did so above the rate of other international evaluations, even of the basic competencies, the evaluation of the Catalan educational system. Are Catalan students in worse condition than those in other autonomous communities, or in the rest of the countries in the world? The rate almost quintuples the recommended and respected rate by the rest of the territories.
The consellera exonerated the teachers and said it was a matter of poorly given information and worse support. But then, why were the instructions given by the company commissioned by the OECD to supervise the tests and the ministry officials understood in other autonomous communities? Why was there no similar failure?
“The organizers of the test execution were not up to the responsibility entrusted to them,” Niubó concluded.
The head of Education gave a brief chronology of the series of incidents. In 2025, the body responsible for coordinating the tests was the Consell Superior d’Avaluació together with the National Institute of Educational Statistics (INEE), dependent on the Ministry of Education.
On March 11, an informative session was held, independent of the INEE’s, with the management of the 51 educational centers to inform about the development of the test. The information provided by the INEE and the evaluating company, the Asturian 2 E Evaluaciones y Estudios, certified by the OECD, was given. “The information was correct, but incomplete because it did not specify the 5% cap of the test,” indicated the consellera.
The management reviewed the list of selected students and decided on the relevant student exclusions. About ten centers recorded a non-participation of up to 40% of students. On the day of the test, moreover, not all the selected students showed up. Nor did they attend the recovery session.
The first warning came on April 9. “The INEE informs the Consell that Catalonia presents an exclusion rate higher than that of the rest of the autonomous communities,” Niubó recounts. “And asks that centers be reminded that only students for whom it is completely impossible to take the test can be excluded.” This alert is repeated in six subsequent reports, as the institute receives reports of exclusions from the educational centers (the tests are held from March to May). They are received days before the test is carried out and the coordinators must review them before submitting them to the ministry.
In any case, no correction request reached the educational centers, which did not review the names of the excluded students. Nor were specific measures activated to correct or prevent it from happening in the centers that were still pending to carry out the test. “This is relevant because there would have been time to act,” lamented Niubó. “Could it have been corrected? Without a doubt,” she answered.
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The consellera added that all this, according to the tracked emails, did not leave the Consell d’Avaluació: “No problematic information about the PISA tests ever reached my desk,” she assured. This newspaper has learned, through sources close to the department’s management council, that Niubó repeatedly asked about the execution of the tests.
Niubó has created a coordinating commission for evaluations and will strengthen the current Agència d’Avaluació
Almost a year passed and, at the end of February 2026, the current director of the Agència d’Avaluació, the body that replaced the Consell, was informed of some incidents in Catalonia. She raised this information to the Secretary of Educational Improvements, who opened the proceedings that the consellera reported on Monday.
These do not explain the reason why student participation was so low when in the rest of the evaluations that the Catalan educational system undergoes, the exclusion respects the international standards of 5%. In any case, Niubó assumed the responsibility of the department: “It was not clear what the centers had to do.”
She also did not explain why the ministry technicians did not inform their superiors of the serious statistical deviation, which could have compromised Spain’s evaluation, who, if they had known, would have alerted the Govern.
These details, the consellera assured, could be found out in the investigation opened about the officials. In any case, she continued, the department has acted by opening the proceedings and putting measures in place to guarantee the reliability of future evaluations. In this regard, Niubó has activated a new evaluation coordination commission that has already met and said she will strengthen the current Agència d’Avaluació.
The department has not revealed the names of the people now under investigation. Two infractions are serious due to their alleged failure to fulfill their obligations and duties as public officials. The third is minor. It is based on the law of transparency and good governance and is justified by alleged acts of omission that have caused negligence. None of these three people are currently working in the Department of Education.
Two infractions are serious for failing to fulfill their obligations and the third is minor, for omission
However, according to La Vanguardia, the Consell Superior d’Avaluació had an executive secretary in charge and several technicians, one of them a teacher on secondment.
The executive secretary was a solfège teacher and career counselor, who became head of studies at the Escola del Treball, a vocational training center in Barcelona. In 2022 she joined the Consell, which was a big professional and salary leap. Six months ago she left the department and returned as a teacher to the educational center.
When she was appointed secretary, the president was Carles Vega, a language teacher, former ERC councilor in Lleida, and former director of territorial services. He was appointed in September 2021 by then conseller Josep Gonzàlez-Cambray, also a teacher in Lleida. Vega was dismissed by consellera Anna Simó in January 2024, precisely for questioning the sample of students in the PISA 2022 report and attributing the poor results to the immigrant population, opening an unprecedented crisis in which the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, intervened to deny this version.
Simó did not appoint anyone in his place as she launched the decree creating the Agència d’Avaluació i Prospecció, an organization with structure and funding. The presidency of the Consell was temporarily assumed by the Curriculum management.
The technical and political leaders of the test coordination left the department
In September 2024, the socialists took over the department and immediately resumed the decree of the Agency. While it was not constituted, the director of Curriculum, Mercè Andreu, took charge, under the responsibility of the Secretary of Educational Improvements, Josefa Beltrán.
Neither of the two leaders from then are still in the department. Both left their positions in October 2025, one year after being appointed, six months after the tests were held, and six months before the fiasco alerted by the OECD became known. Andreu went to teach at a center and Beltrán went to occupy the Education Ministry of the Spanish Ministry of Education in Bulgaria.
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