“Technical issues” are to blame for the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) cancelling online literacy tests across the province today.
EQAO and secondary schools across Ontario were set to “make an important leap from paper to the online OSSLT (Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test)” before running into problems.
“We acknowledge that we are experiencing widespread technical issues with the online OSSLT network,” EQAO officials stated on their website.
“We regret to inform you that we have cancelled today’s assessment. Please pause all students on the Proctor Websites and log out of the Kiosk. Instruct your students to discontinue taking the assessment. Further information will be provided to directors of education to help them communicate to their school communities shortly.”
EQAO officials say they had been planning a province-wide trial of their online testing system, along with serving as a trial of schools’ and school boards’ technical readiness to support online assessments.
“We recognize all of the work that schools have done to prepare for this trial,” EQAO officials stated.
“We are disappointed at the outcome of this trial and sincerely apologize for this development.”
The St. Clair District Catholic School Board said on social media they are awaiting further direction from EQAO.
“EQAO has issued a statement expressing disappointment and apologizing for this development,” St. Clair official stated. “We wish to thank our students and our teachers for the tremendous work they did in preparing for the test in this new format.”
The Lambton-Kent District School Board posted on their website that the EQAO was “having difficulties with the capacity of log-ins” for the trial run.
“Thank you to all staff and students for your efforts and participation in the first large-scale online OSSLT assessment,” public school board officials stated.
“At the LKDSB, the IT preparation and implementation functioned extremely well. We have submitted the students’ work and we will continue to dialogue with EQAO about how this OSSLT will be assessed and how the results will be communicated back to us. As we receive more detailed information, we will continue to update and notify schools.”
EQAO is an independent agency that creates and administers large-scale assessments to measure Ontario students’ achievement in reading, writing and math at key stages of their education.
