Setting a global standard in digital assessment: ACER and OAT recognised for PISA 2025 delivery

The award acknowledges the successful implementation of an international assessment delivered across 91 countries and economies, in 54 languages, and at a scale of more than 900,000 student sessions. While the operational achievement is significant, the importance of PISA 2025 lies in the quality and integrity of the evidence it produces.

Evidence education systems rely on

PISA provides internationally comparable data on how well education systems are supporting young people to apply their knowledge and skills in reading, mathematics and science. That data is used by governments to assess performance, identify priorities for improvement, and inform policy. Its value depends on a simple premise: that results can be compared fairly across countries, languages and contexts.

Delivering on that premise has always been technically demanding. In 2025, it required a different model.

For the first time, PISA was delivered through a single, integrated digital platform, designed and implemented by ACER in partnership with OAT. This replaced previous distributed approaches with a centrally managed system, enabling tighter control over assessment conditions and reducing sources of variability that can affect comparability.

Every student, regardless of location, language or infrastructure, accessed the same assessment framework. Online and offline delivery were supported within the same system. Assessment forms were allocated automatically, in real time, without local configuration. This significantly reduced the risk of inconsistency across participating systems.

Consistency of delivery, confidence in results

At the same time, the assessment itself expanded. Adaptive pathways allowed more precise measurement across a wide range of student ability. New tasks, including speaking and listening components, extended what could be assessed. These changes introduced additional complexity, but were implemented within a framework that maintained consistency of standards.

Maintaining those standards depended on the consistent application of technical and quality assurance processes across all participating countries. ACER led this work, ensuring adherence to PISA Technical Standards, overseeing linguistic and cultural verification, and monitoring delivery across time zones during live operations.

A central requirement was that differences in results should reflect differences in student performance, not differences in how the assessment was delivered. Meeting that requirement is what allows participating countries to interpret their data with confidence.

The platform developed in partnership with OAT provided the infrastructure to support this approach, including secure data capture, interoperability with international standards, and the ability to operate reliably in both connected and low-connectivity environments. This was complemented by the work of consortium partners cApStAn and HallStat, who contributed expertise in translation and quality control.

PISA 2025 demonstrates that it is now possible to deliver a complex international assessment through a unified digital model without compromising validity, comparability or reliability. For education systems, this matters. As policy decisions increasingly rely on robust evidence, the conditions under which that evidence is produced become more important.

The programme provides a practical foundation for future cycles of PISA and for other large-scale assessments managed by ACER that are facing similar demands. It shows that scale and consistency can be achieved together when the underlying systems are designed with that objective in mind.

The Global PISA results will be released by the OECD in September 2026.

Read ACER's joint media release with Open Assessment Technologies (OAT)