Inga blames ministry for confusion over PISA data

Education and Children’s Affairs Minister Inga Sæland says she has not changed her position on publishing PISA results and that municipalities were always due to receive the data at the ministry’s initiative, whether or not they chose to use it, Morgunblaðið reports. She says conflicting information was given and that the ministry issued incorrect information.

Earlier this month, the ministry published calculated results for Icelandic students in the seven most populous municipalities, compared with the national average. Earlier this week, the ministry’s website said municipalities and primary schools could receive their own results if they requested them. Inga says that information was wrong, but it has not been changed since it was first published.

Borgarbyggð municipality requested PISA data on 18 September. The ministry rejected the request on 8 October, saying some data were restricted under an agreement with the OECD and could be traceable to individuals. It also said PISA was not designed to assess individual schools. Borgarbyggð appealed the decision to the Appeals Committee on Information Matters.

PISA results have not been made public or available to school administrators for about a decade. The ministry has previously said the survey is not intended to assess individual schools and that results could be unreliable. In a response to mbl.is in July 2024, the ministry said it did not hold data showing results for individual Icelandic schools in the preceding PISA survey.

“I have not changed my mind at all. I have said from day one that if it is not prohibited, it will be published,” Inga told Morgunblaðið. She said results for the largest municipalities were published first because they could be calculated from PISA’s raw data.

Work on the raw data for smaller municipalities has continued, she said, because the results are subject to a margin of error. Municipalities will receive the data with that caveat, and the results will not be precise, she added.

Inga said it was an oversight not to state clearly from the outset that the data would be published and provided to municipalities. She said information had been inconsistent and that the ministry had issued incorrect information earlier in the week.