Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 17 May 2000

Vol. 519 No. 3

Leaving Certificate Examination.

Mr. Creed

The leaving certificate examination is the defining moment in any young person's life and how he or she performs impacts significantly on his or her life thereafter. For this reason, it is imperative that every student gets a fair crack of the whip. Because I believe the student at the centre of this debate is not being given a fair chance, I sought to raise the matter. I am grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to do so.

The circumstances surrounding this student's case only came to my attention in recent days. I was approached when the student, his parents and his school had exhausted all other avenues. I raise the case not because I believe the student should be treated more favourably than any other in similar circumstances but because a mistake has been made in dealing with his application, which should be corrected. I have raised this matter with officials in the Minister's office and with an official in the examination office in Athlone, all to no avail. I understand the proffered reasons they cannot accede to the request for special concessions, but I do not accept them as valid as they are based on an incorrect premise, which I will explain.

First, the student in question was referred to a senior psychologist to evaluate his current level of intellectual functioning. His scores on the Ravens standard progressive matrices indicate that he is functioning within the superior range of intelligence. The psychologist recommended that concessions be made by the Department of Education and Science in respect of his leaving certificate, but these have been refused.

Second, the student's performance in the junior certificate is at variance with somebody identified as within the superior range of intelligence. This clearly indicates a specific learning difficulty and failure to recognise this is nothing short of discrimination. Third, during the Department's evaluation of this student's application for special arrangements in the form of extra time for his examinations a departmental official, whose name I will provide to the Minister, if necessary, indicated to a teacher in the school concerned, who was responsible for presenting the application on behalf of the school, that the student's need could be served by using a dictaphone or tape recorder. This is implicit recognition of his difficulty and the Minister should consider this development carefully. The student, having no experience of the technology, found it unsuitable and intimidating – a hindrance rather than a help. This is also the professional view of the school and teacher involved. This is the fault line in the Department's decision.

Fourth, I understand the Department has circulars, policy statements, pilot schemes, expert review groups and independent appeals systems which impact on this area. It may be difficult to comprehend but I firmly believe a mistake has been made in this case, which should be rectified. The evidence I outlined supports this view. The pilot scheme to be introduced in this year's leaving certificate, whereby an optional extra 20 minutes will be available to all students, has been presented to me in discussions with departmental officials as a partial solution to this student's problem in any event. However, it is far from one. Notwithstanding that this optional extra 20 minutes applies only to Irish, English, history and geography, it will merely accentuate his difficulty in so far as mainstream students will use the additional time to polish their scripts, raise the overall standard of results and, thus, put greater pressure on all students in circumstances similar to those of the student under consideration in this debate.

This student and all similar students need additional time over and above that of mainstream students. The other subjects he is taking in the leaving certificate not covered by the pilot scheme, namely biology and business organisation, require a great deal of writing and will exacerbate an already difficult situation. I ask the Minister of State to revisit this case urgently. Not just an examination, but in all likelihood, a lifetime rests in the balance.

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science (Mr. O'Dea)

To aid the Deputy's comprehension, it might be useful to explain the background and context to the arrangements made for the assessment of candidates with special needs at the certificate examinations. The previous Minister for Education and Science in late 1998 requested the Expert Advisory Group on Certificate Examinations, a body he established in December 1997, to provide independent advice and evaluation on the operation of examinations and to prepare a discussion paper on the difficult and complex issues concerning the provision of special arrangements at the examinations for students with special needs.

The discussion paper set out the current arrangements for candidates with special needs and provided descriptions of approaches followed by examining bodies in Great Britain. It proposed a number of principles which should underlie the provision of special arrangements and identified a series of issues requiring discussion. The paper was published in May 1999. Responses were invited from interested parties in advertisements in the national newspapers and the paper was also made available to all schools. It was published on the Internet and more than 200 submissions were received.

After careful consideration of the submissions the advisory body prepared a report for the Minister in which it set out the principles on which the provision of arrangements might be based. These principles aim to strike a correct balance between ensuring, on the one hand, that candidates with special needs are given every opportunity to demonstrate their level of attainment while, on the other, not giving any candidate an unfair advantage over other candidates in the same examination. Among the principles proposed are that provision should be made for both physical and learning disabilities; special arrangements should not put the integrity, status or reputation of the examination at risk; special arrangements are designed to assist a candidate in demonstrating his or her achievements in an examination setting but are not designed to compensate for a lack of achievement arising from a disability; and since a core principle of the certificate examinations is to ensure equitable treatment for all candidates, arrangements should not give the candidate for whom they are made an advantage over other candidates.

Mr. Creed

Accepted.

Mr. O'Dea

The advisory group report considered the issues that relate to extending examination time for some candidates at length. It noted that the provision of extra time has the potential to allow a candidate to provide additional information in response to questions or to attempt additional questions. On the face of it, then, additional time could confer an unfair advantage on individual candidates. On the other hand, however, it can be argued that for some candidates additional time would do no more than enable them to access the test instrument in a way available to all candidates. The group considered that attempting to ensure that extra time is restricted only to those who would achieve no advantage is well nigh impossible. It would require intensive screening of each individual applicant by professionals and even then, given the variation in the nature and severity of special needs, it would be extremely difficult to decide how much time was required by a candidate and whether the additional time conferred an advantage in the examination.

Accordingly, the group recommended that an alternative way forward that might meet the special needs of many candidates while, at the same time, preserving the integrity of the examination system, would be to make the time element of examinations less critical. They proposed that all candidates might be given the option of availing of a limited increase in time of 15 to 20 minutes, but that this option would not be available in all examinations on the basis that extra time would not be required in all subjects.

Specifically, they proposed that, on a pilot basis, in the leaving certificate examination in 2000, all candidates be offered the option of availing of an additional 15 to 20 minutes in a small number of subjects. The examinations to which this proposal would apply should be determined in consultation with chief examiners. They recommended that the selected subjects should be ones taken by large numbers of candidates, in which time seems to be a critical issue, and that a number of subjects in the humanities, which involve extensive essay writing, would seem to meet these criteria. If the proposal is adopted, they recommended that its implementation should be monitored and the situation should be reviewed in light of the experience gained in the pilot project.

The Minister for Education and Science accepted the general set of principles identified in the report of the expert advisory group as a sound basis for dealing with this complex and difficult area and decided to begin the process of implementing their recommendations for the current year's examinations. The measures the Minister has introduced make the examination system more flexible and responsive to the needs of students who would otherwise have difficulty with some examination subjects because of their special needs. This represents a significant advance in the inclusiveness of the examination system as a whole.

The Minister has acted upon the group's recommendation in relation to additional time and extended the time for a number of subjects at this year's leaving certificate examination for all candidates. As recommended by the expert advisory group the position will subsequently be reviewed.

A further initiative taken by the Minister for Education and Science this year was to put in place an appeals group that is totally independent of the Department. The appeals group can adjudicate on individual cases where an applicant is not satisfied with the arrangements proposed and determine the case in line with the principles set out by the expert advisory group. The creation of an independent appellate procedure ensures that any candidate has ready access in an open and transparent way to a fair and unbiased hearing.

Given that an independent appeal procedure exists and given the overriding requirement that all candidates should be treated in a fair and consistent manner, it would be incorrect for any Minister to intervene at the level of an individual candidate.