Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to apologise on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, who unfortunately cannot be here today. I thank Senator Conway for raising this very important matter. At the outset, I want to acknowledge the strong contribution he made at the weekend in promoting diversity in public life. It is important that our council chambers, Seanad and Dáil reflect the society they serve. It was a timely intervention at the weekend and something that we will robustly support in our Department in terms of trying to get diversity into political life. It is important interventions like that that we need in public life. The State Examinations Commission, SEC, has statutory responsibility for the certificate examinations and provides a scheme of reasonable accommodations at the certificate examinations, RACE, to support students with a complex variety of special educational needs. The RACE scheme allows relevant students to engage with the standard examination arrangements and to demonstrate what they know and what they can do in a way that does not compromise the integrity of the assessment. The focus of the scheme is on the need to remove examination access barriers while retaining the need to assess the same underlying skills and competencies, and to apply the same standards of achievement as apply to all other students.

An extensive range of examination supports is available through the RACE scheme to support candidates with visual impairments in taking their examinations. The SEC works very closely with the visiting teacher service of the National Council for Special Education in this regard. In the oral examinations for modern foreign languages and the Irish language, the provision for enlarged pictures sequences or role play cards will be provided to candidates who have been granted the accommodation of an enlarged examination paper under the scheme. The use of visual aides, magnifier or reading lamps can also be used if required.

In considering the possible accommodations for the oral Irish examination with regard to picture sequences, it is necessary to consider the demands of this aspect of the examination on all candidates. The oral examination is worth 40% of the overall marks available for this subject, with the picture sequences worth 80 marks out of the 240 available for the oral examination. Typically, candidates taking the oral Irish examination are expected to be familiar with 20 picture sequences but in 2022, to alleviate the burden on candidates due to Covid-19, this has been reduced to ten. Each picture sequence is an A4 page with a series of six pictures that present a particular story. Candidates have access to the picture sequences from the beginning of fifth year. Candidates choose at random one of the picture sequences and are expected to provide an account in Irish about the series of pictures. The candidate's ability will be assessed on both the descriptive narration and the interaction between the candidate and the examiner.

In recent years, in engagement with the visiting teacher service, the accommodation provided for candidates with visual impairments is to replace the picture sequences with a narrative description of what is happening in each of the storyboards presented in English. The picture sequences of the Irish oral examinations are assessing a core skill and so candidates may not be exempted from this element of the examination. The provision of the English language storyboards for students with visual impairments upholds a fundamental principle of the RACE scheme, which is that any alternative assessment provided must assess the same construct as the original test item and must not compromise the purpose of the examination.

I will bring the two issues raised by the Senator to the attention of the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, specifically in terms of the variation from area to area and also the digital component.