Concern has been expressed about Department of Education plans to issue special needs students with modified Leaving Certificates this year for the first time.
The record of the results of special needs students will include an explanatory note to indicate they were not assessed in all areas in certain subjects.
This arises because some students cannot write their own paper or cannot take part in aural elements of the exam. Groups promoting the interests of such pupils accused the Department of "stigmatising" them. They are worried that employers will discriminate against those with such certificates. It was learned last night that the Minister of State for Justice, Ms Mary Wallace, who has responsibility for the disabled, has requested a meeting with the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, on the issue.
In the Dail yesterday, Dr Woods said exam components not accessible to special needs students should be included in the Leaving Certificate results form.
He said the note would not make any reference to a student's disability and was in the interest of accommodating them. The director of the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities (ACALD), Ms Ann Hughes, said: "We are very unhappy about it and regard it as a retrograde step." The chief executive officer of Carlow VEC, Mr Laurence Kavanagh, described it as a "draconian measure to stigmatise young people by alluding to their disability in a pejorative way on their examination certificates".
Mr Desmond Kenny, chief executive of the National Council for the Blind, said the Department should revert to a standard certificate for everyone. Ms Ann McSweeney, who works with special needs children at Carlow Vocational School, said the idea should be withdrawn for a year to allow further consultation and a more "positive approach" to emerge.
The names of those shortlisted for the post of president of the National University of Ireland, Galway, were circulated to members of the appointing body yesterday. The appointing body, Udaras na hOllscoile, or the governing authority, will consider the names put before it by the assessment/interview board before they meet in special session on Friday morning to select the new president.
The person to succeed Dr Patrick Fottrell on August 1st, should be known by Friday.