MP says PISA data secrecy denies schools tools to help children

Jón Pétur Zimsen says schools should receive their own PISA results so they can use them to improve teaching. The Independence Party MP and first deputy chair of parliament’s General and Education Committee made the case in an opinion piece published in Morgunblaðið, mbl.is reported.

Zimsen, a trained primary school teacher and former headteacher, criticised education authorities for ending the practice of giving schools their own results. He said the information had helped schools develop their work, and questioned why they were being denied data on student performance as results for Icelandic pupils had declined significantly.

Schools and smaller municipalities received their own results in 2012 and 2015, after the education ministry announced further analysis and presentations of PISA findings in 2009. That practice later ended. “Since then, the door has been shut, and schools cannot use costly information to benefit students,” Zimsen wrote.

He said Iceland’s PISA survey covers all students in the relevant age group, unlike in larger countries where it is based on a sample. He cited Iceland’s PISA 2022 report, which says that because the survey covers the entire population of students, it is possible to track individual schools’ results over time.

Zimsen also pointed to Latvia, where participating schools receive information about their PISA performance despite the survey being based on a student sample, and Estonia, where education authorities have produced specific feedback for schools.

PISA 2025 results have been published for Iceland’s seven most populous municipalities, but individual schools have not received comparable feedback. Zimsen said the information would be most useful within the schools themselves. He acknowledged that statistical accuracy matters, particularly for small groups, but said that should not prevent schools from receiving the results. He proposed publishing them with margins of error.