Last Friday afternoon school principal Craig Petrie finally got the call he had been waiting for.
Two students who injured their hands in recent weeks were finally approved by the State Examinations Commission for access to a scribe to write down their answers during the Leaving Cert exams which begin on Wednesday.
“It’s a huge relief,” he says. “If it had been any later, we might not have found out until the day of the exams.”
Last week, the school also received late confirmation that two students who had been diagnosed with ADHD in recent months would have access to a small classroom instead of a large exam hall.
“If they had been turned down for any reason, it would have been too late to appeal the decision in time. Appeals can take two or three weeks,” Petrie says.
East Glendalough School in Co Wickow, where Petrie is principal, is a relatively small secondary school of 360 pupils. The process of preparing for the exams, however, is increasingly complex.
It has four main exam halls for the 120 students sitting Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert exams this year, as well as 12 smaller so-called special examination centres.
They are provided under the “reasonable accommodation” scheme, which allows for a range of adaptations for students with additional needs (such as anxiety, learning difficulties or physical disabilities) who would struggle to sit exams under normal conditions.
It means students may be sitting the same exam but they won’t be in the same room. Some will be in the traditional sports hall with large numbers of students, while others may be in a classroom, one-to-one with an invigilator or with a small number of other students. Some will be using a traditional pen and paper, while others will have laptops, “reading pens” or access to scribes.
The aim of the scheme is to remove barriers and provide a level playing field.
The problem is the number of pupils who have these arrangements has increased so significantly that schools are struggling to find enough classrooms or qualified staff.
In many cases, schools say they end up waiting until just days before the exams to find out if students have been approved for special supports.
When it started in 2003, about 5 per cent of candidates were provided with reasonable accommodations. Ten years later it had climbed to 13 per cent. Last year, the total number reached a record 24 per cent, or 31,800 State examination candidates. If current trends continue, numbers for this year are expected to climb higher still.
The vast majority of candidates availing of the reasonable accommodation scheme have learning difficulties, while vision- and hearing-impaired candidates make up a small proportion of the overall numbers (1-2 per cent). The most common type of special measures students receive include spelling or grammar waivers, reading assistance, use of a word processor or exemption from a subject or component.
The sharp rise appears to reflect the growing prevalence of conditions such as autism and other learning difficulties. Most education experts put this down to an increased awareness of symptoms, better diagnosis and a significant widening of assessment boundaries for disorders.
More controversially, experts also say the fact that a diagnosis can unlock supports means that clinicians are more likely to diagnose a child, even if they on the borderline of clinical criteria.
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The volume of students availing of smaller special centres has also climbed dramatically. In 2018, for example, a little more than 18,600 students sat their State exams in special centres. Last year, it climbed to 31,800 candidates, a 70 per cent increase.
With such sharp growth in numbers, can the system continue to cope into the future?
“I think the system is under real pressure, but I do think it’s fit for purpose,” Petrie says. “The SEC [State Examinations Commission] delivers an extraordinary service when you think of the numbers. They will always answer the phone and respond, under huge pressure.”
Another principal, who declined to be named, said we are at risk of reaching a point where a minority of students will be in traditional exam halls: “We’re just about responding to the needs. Too many students are finding out if they are approved late in the day. If the trends continue, it will pose serious logistical problems.”
A spokesman for the SEC said it operates a number of Race (Scheme of Reasonable Accommodations at Certificate Examinations) application processes with various closing dates, including a “late application” process with a deadline of April 2025, and a separate “emergency application” for candidates with broken bones, hospitalisations or other issues.
Given the circumstances in which emergencies arise, the spokesman said the application and decision-making process for reasonable accommodation is “time constrained”. SEC staff, he said, were working throughout the bank holiday weekend finalising applications, issuing decisions and putting arrangements in place with school authorities. “All emergency applications are handled as a priority and all decisions will be issued in time for the start of examinations,” he said.
In the background, meanwhile, there is a wider debate over the level of diagnosis for a range of conditions and related supports. Petrie feels we need to tread carefully before changing eligibility rules.
“I do worry that maybe we are over-diagnosing. The system does bestow benefits in terms of reasonable accommodation, access to the Dare scheme [lower CAO points requirement] and supports in college ... but this system is also here to help students. I’d be very wary of changing rules that would not make students entitled to supports aimed at levelling the playing field.”
