ACER and OAT win top e-assessment award for PISA 2025

Open Assessment Technologies and the Australian Council for Educational Research won Best International Implementation at the 2026 e-Assessment Awards for delivering PISA 2025 across 91 countries and economies. The award highlights how the digital assessment ran online and offline in 54 languages at global scale while preserving comparability and reliability.

Why it matters: - The award spotlights one of the largest digital assessment rollouts ever completed in international education. - PISA results help governments compare education systems and shape policy and reform. - The implementation shows that large-scale testing can run across different connectivity conditions without breaking consistency.

What happened: - Open Assessment Technologies (OAT) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) won Best International Implementation at the 2026 e-Assessment Awards for PISA 2025. - The recognition came from the eAssessment Association, which honors digital assessment innovation and operational delivery. - The official winners and finalists are listed here. - The PISA 2025 rollout covered 91 countries and economies. - The programme supported more than 900,000 assessment sessions in 54 languages.

The details: - PISA is the OECD's global survey of 15-year-old students and measures knowledge and skills linked to social and economic participation. - ACER and OAT delivered the assessment through a single integrated platform. - The platform supported both online and offline delivery for the first time in PISA. - More than 800,000 assessments were completed online. - More than 100,000 assessments were completed offline. - The implementation included adaptive testing, interactive digital tasks, speaking and listening assessments, multilingual localisation and secure data collection. - The assessment used event-level interaction data capture and standards-based interoperability through QTI and LTI frameworks. - An international consortium led by ACER and OAT delivered the programme with cApStAn and HallStat. - The consortium focused on operational consistency, linguistic quality, data integrity and technical reliability.

Between the lines: - The award signals that centralized digital governance can still accommodate local constraints such as language and infrastructure. - The online-offline model matters for countries with uneven connectivity, since it protects participation and comparability. - The recognition also suggests the PISA 2025 platform may serve as a model for future international assessments. - Miguel Prieto, vice president of corporate strategy at OAT, said the rollout showed a secure and scalable platform can support international assessments while preserving validity, comparability and operational reliability. - Goran Lazendic, chief research director at ACER, said the project provides a proven foundation and credible pathway for future cycles.

What's next: - ACER said PISA 2025 establishes a foundation for future cycles. - The consortium's approach could shape how other global assessment programs combine central oversight with flexible local delivery. - OAT said TAO is used in more than 160 countries and supports over 30 million tests annually, positioning the platform for more large-scale deployments.

The bottom line: - PISA 2025 was recognized not just for scale, but for proving that global digital assessment can stay consistent, secure and comparable across highly diverse education systems.