In a press release on Friday afternoon, the Swedish National Agency for Education writes that the incident will be reported to the Integrity Protection Authority (IMY).
"Students' personal data have a special protection value, and we must be completely sure that we can conduct the important national tests in a safe and high-quality manner. I do not think that is the case now, and I have therefore decided to shut down the test service during the spring of 2025," says the Director-General of the Swedish National Agency for Education, Joakim Malmström, in the press release.
Paper and Pen
Instead, students will take replacement tests with paper and pen or in the schools' own platforms.
The big question is, of course, how the failure could occur and student data could leak.
We also wonder that. We are investigating it with the supplier, says department head Anna Westerholm to TT.
Have you been exposed to a digital intrusion?
We don't know. We need to get control of this and shut it down without having all the answers, says Anna Westerholm.
Eight Years of Work
The work on digitizing the national tests has been ongoing since 2017, and the Swedish National Agency for Education's costs for the project so far amount to 697 million kronor.
A few days ago, the Swedish National Agency for Education announced that it had cancelled some of the national digital tests in Swedish due to the spelling and grammar control in the system not meeting the requirements. This led to the Minister of Education, Lotta Edholm (L), calling the Director-General of the Swedish National Agency for Education to her for an explanation. But since then, the problems have worsened, and the Minister of Education states on Friday afternoon that the new information is "very serious".
"Now it is even more urgent to hear how they plan to act going forward, and I am ruling out nothing at present," comments Lotta Edholm via her press secretary in an email to TT.
Challenging
The question is whether all the problems will disrupt the timeline for the tests, the central grading, and ultimately a new grading system.
There are many parts that need to fit together. For example, for central grading to be able to function and start in 2026, the digital tests need to go well. And a new grading system is entirely based on the digital tests functioning well. But at present, we are sticking to the timeline, says Anna Westerholm.
Corrected: In an earlier version of the text, the wrong weekday was stated for when the Swedish National Agency for Education published the information.
