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Sweden's National Digital Assessment Platform: What Happened

In 2025, the integrity of the Swedish assessment process was severely challenged following the unilateral adoption of a new digital platform by the Swedish Ministry for Education for mandatory national examinations. Shortly before the scheduled test dates, the platform was deemed unprepared for widespread deployment, necessitating an unprecedented nationwide pause. This abrupt decision left schools and municipalities with minimal time to secure alternative, compliant methods for delivering critical digital national exams (DNP), jeopardising student progression and administrative continuity.

Among the municipalities directly impacted were Hörby and Tibro, both of which had proactively integrated Inspera Assessment into their educational infrastructure since 2019. This pre-existing adoption proved instrumental in their ability to swiftly adapt and ensure the uninterrupted delivery of national tests, safeguarding the significant efforts of their students.

This case study details the experiences of administrators, teachers, and students across Hörby’s four schools and Tibro’s seven, offering insights into the strategic decisions that led to Inspera’s selection and its crucial role in overcoming the national platform’s critical failures. Ulrik Heedman from Tibro Municipality and Björn Nilsson from Hörby Municipality provide firsthand accounts of why Inspera Assessment became the indispensable solution when the centralised national system proved inadequate.

How Hörby and Tibro Overcame This Challenge

The transition to a new digital platform for mandatory national tests, mandated at a governmental level, required all Swedish municipalities to utilise this singular system for evaluating Swedish and English language proficiency, among other subjects. This directive presented significant technical and logistical challenges. Fortunately, both Hörby and Tibro Municipalities possessed a strategic advantage, having successfully implemented Inspera Assessment for digital examinations since 2019.

This proactive adoption meant they were already adept at utilising a reliable digital assessment infrastructure. Hörby, for instance, had established a practice of conducting closed-book summative exams across various subjects, while language teachers had extended Inspera’s use to formative assessments, confident in its inherent capabilities for secure, locked-down delivery.

It was a necessity for a digital environment that ensured examination integrity. Pre-existing concerns from schools and municipalities regarding the national platform’s potential for question exposure and insufficient control over test-taker identity had been widely reported in the national press. Furthermore, the rising prevalence of AI-driven cheating, evidenced by incidents in seventh and eighth-grade student assessments, intensified the demand for truly closed-book examination settings.

In an era where AI tools could undermine academic integrity, the ability to guarantee a secure, immutable testing environment became paramount. Inspera Assessment’s native support for secure browser technology and offline capabilities directly addressed these escalating security and integrity concerns, distinguishing it as a viable and trusted solution for Hörby and Tibro where the national alternative failed.

Strategic Implementation Amidst Urgent Circumstances

The abrupt nature of the national platform’s suspension necessitated immediate and strategic decisions from the municipalities. Hörby and Tibro Municipalities had to make choices based on their existing technological infrastructure, available resources, and student cohorts.

Hörby Municipality’s Approach

For Hörby Municipality, the swift solution involved reverting to their established and proven methodology for digital examinations using Inspera Assessment. This entailed:

  • Essay Questions: Essay assignments were seamlessly configured and delivered via Inspera Assessment, leveraging its robust capabilities for secure text input and submission.
  • Non-Essay Questions: For question types not permitted to be copied into a digital format due to national regulations, students initially received these tests on paper. Subsequently, their responses were typed into Inspera Assessment for digital submission and processing. This hybrid approach ensured compliance while maintaining the efficiency of digital capture.

To ensure a smooth transition, Hörby proactively organised preparatory sessions for all involved teachers. These sessions focused on the practical aspects of utilising Inspera for the national tests and provided guidance on addressing potential issues during the examinations.Students also received thorough preparation on navigating Inspera Assessment, minimising anxiety and facilitating a focused testing environment.

Tibro Municipality’s Strategic Retention

Tibro Municipality’s situation highlights the unforeseen value of continuity. While the municipality had been considering discontinuing its Inspera contract due to the prospective national provider, the platform’s deep integration into existing formative and summative assessments, coupled with an anticipated transition period, led to its strategic retention. This decision proved fortunate when the need for a rapid pivot arose, averting a return to conventional pen-and-paper testing for which students were unprepared.

A key challenge for Tibro had been the new national platform’s incompatibility with their prevalent iPad hardware. This compatibility issue had prompted Tibro to make an earlier decision to revert to Inspera Assessment, mitigating a potential device-related crisis.

Tibro’s existing setup provided a foundation of student, teacher and school administrator familiarity with Inspera Assessment, as all user groups were already adept at using the platform.

The process of adapting the national tests for Inspera involved a substantial effort. The guidelines prevented the paper questions from being replicated digitally and so the questions needed to be provided on paper, while the answers were to be typed onto the platform. With approximately 20 pages per test to be copied with only one example provided per school, the Municipality had to ensure there were enough copies of the paper-based test to distribute among students.The test delivery was similar to Hörby:

  • Reading Comprehension and Essay Assignments: These were provided on paper, and students typed their responses directly into the secure Inspera Assessment environment, fulfilling the requirement for closed-platform delivery.
  • Other Exam Papers: National regulations restricted the copying of certain other exam questions into digital platforms. Ulrik Heedman expressed confidence that, had these regulatory constraints not existed, Inspera Assessment would have been the optimal digital solution for these sections as well.

Heedman specifically commended the instrumental role of the Inspera customer support team, emphasising their crucial assistance in facilitating Tibro’s ability to run tests effectively and optimise their implementation of the platform.

Initial Results and Future Considerations

With the recent completion of the national tests, the comprehensive results of the various approaches are still pending. However, initial feedback from both Hörby and Tibro municipalities has been overwhelmingly positive, underscoring the critical role Inspera Assessment played in mitigating the impact of a national crisis at a local level.

Björn Nilsson of Hörby Municipality described Inspera as “legally secure for the students,” highlighting its ability to provide a compliant and trustworthy testing environment. Ulrik Heedman of Tibro Municipality went as far as to describe Inspera Assessment as “Microsoft Forms on steroids,” a testament to its advanced functionality and robust capabilities compared to more basic digital tools. This feedback indicates a significant success in maintaining educational continuity and assessment integrity despite the national platform’s failure.

The experiences of Hörby and Tibro municipalities offer crucial insights for the future of digital national testing in Sweden. Their ability and assuredness to pivot swiftly and effectively using an established, secure platform like Inspera Assessment demonstrates the inherent risks of relying on a single, untested national solution and the critical importance of having reliable alternatives.

Looking ahead, the Swedish government and municipalities face ongoing challenges in establishing a sustainable and secure national testing framework. A significant factor that came to light during this period is the issue of exam security beyond the platform itself. While the focus has primarily been on implementing a new digital delivery system, there have been concerns regarding the item banks and questions used for the national tests. It has been suggested that these test questions have not been consistently updated, potentially leading to the repetition of the same questions for up to three consecutive years.

This lack of frequent question rotation has profound implications for exam integrity. When the guidelines emphasise providing a closed-book testing environment – a crucial measure in the age of readily available information and advanced AI – the ability to maintain this standard is severely compromised if students are familiar with, or can predict, the questions.