Professor Barbara Dooley:

I will respond very quickly. First, about examinations. All higher education institutions look to diversified assessment strategies. It is not just always exams. We understand that students do not always go into an exam hall, so to speak, and we have different strategies to help students transition and to have different styles of examining.

In terms of the HEAR and DARE programmes, the pathways into university are acknowledged as a success if you come in through a pathway but also you need to be supported as you transition in through those different pathways for continued success. It is not enough to come in through an access pathway; once a student is in then supports need to be put in place in order that the person continues and transitions really well. That is something that universities have done really well. The other thing they are doing is embedding universal design principles into the curriculum and the design of our buildings and how we operate. In this way, we can ensure success for all sorts of different students, not just those from the HEAR and DARE programmes. Students come from different pathways and design needs to be considered in that way.