A hiccup with the province's new online secondary school literacy test has led to the trial run being cancelled.
Thousands of high school students across Ontario including many in the Thames Valley District School Board were unable to log on to the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests Thursday morning.
An urgent message on the EQAU website initially said they were experiencing technical issues with the Online OSSLT network and would only need a few moments to resolve them. But by 11:30am that message was replaced with a cancellation notice.
"We acknowledge that we are experiencing widespread technical issues with the online OSSLT network. We regret to inform you that we have cancelled today’s assessment," a noticed on the EQAO website read.
The online posting went on to say EQAO officials recognize all of the work that schools have done to prepare for this trial and are disappointed at the outcome.
Thursday's test was a trial run for online literacy testing in March for Grade 10 students across Ontario. Many school boards opted into the trial as students who passed wouldn't have had to re-take the test in the spring.