A scalable assessment platform for data-driven education

Creating transparency in education

The Swiss cantons Aargau, Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt, and Solothurn steer compulsory education for more than 160,000 students each year. While large amounts of data are generated in daily school life, cantonal authorities lacked standardized insights into long-term learning outcomes to support data-based decisions.

At the same time, teachers work in increasingly diverse classrooms. Higher demands for individual support and growing administrative tasks have increased their workload. Assessing students’ writing skills proved especially challenging: meaningful feedback is essential, yet time-consuming.

A scalable assessment platform combining psychometrics and AI

To address these challenges, IBE combined its expertise in adaptive testing and psychometrics with Trifork’s software engineering to build a digital assessment platform. Learning progress is measured on a vertical scale, making results comparable across grades, schools, and years. This creates reliable insights for students, teachers, school leaders, and cantonal authorities.

Building on this foundation, IBE added an AI-based writing assessment tool. Using large language models trained on validated student texts, automated essay scoring delivers individualized, scientifically validated feedback aligned with educational standards.

tests on peak days

15.000

tests per year

1.655.000

Real-time

Feedback

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“IBE’s services are essential because they transform educational data into reliable, comparable insights that enable evidence-based system governance while reducing teacher workload and improving learning outcomes.”

Andreas Walter

Head of the Cantonal Education Authority, Canton of Solothurn

From classroom insights to data-driven governance

The platform has changed how learning outcomes are measured and used across the cantons. Authorities gain reliable long-term data to evaluate reforms and guide policy decisions.

In classrooms, automated feedback enables more frequent writing practice and faster formative feedback. Teachers spend less time correcting and more time teaching.

For Trifork, the case shows how scalable platforms and AI create value in the public sector – turning education data into action at classroom and system level.