Written answers

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Department of Education and Skills

Special Educational Needs Services Provision

Photo of Finian McGrathFinian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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228. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding project math and dyslexic students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17429/14]

Photo of Terence FlanaganTerence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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236. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if extra time will be provided for dyslexic children to sit project maths exams in the Junior Certificate 2014 (details supplied) in Dublin 5; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17538/14]

Photo of Tommy BroughanTommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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267. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties experienced by some students as a result of the introduction of a new curriculum in maths for junior certificate students as part of project maths, particularly students with dyslexia; the adaptations that are being made or may be made to the new curriculum in maths for students with dyslexia including the provision of additional time for students with dyslexia sitting the junior certificate exam in maths. [17965/14]

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 228, 236 and 267 together.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) operates a Scheme of Reasonable Accommodations at the Certificate Examinations (RACE scheme). The scheme is designed to assist candidates with special needs at the certificate examinations. Within the context of the RACE scheme the term 'special need' applies to candidates who have a physical disability, including visual and hearing impairments, or a specific learning difficulty. Reasonable accommodations are intended to;

(a) to remove, as far as possible, the impact of the disability on the candidate's performance and thus enable the candidate to demonstrate his or her level of attainment and

(b) to ensure that, whilst giving candidates every opportunity to demonstrate their level of attainment, the special arrangements will not give the candidate an unfair advantage over other candidates in the same examination.

Reasonable accommodations are not intended to compensate for a possible lack of achievement arising from a disability nor to compensate for difficulties arising from a candidate's general intellectual functioning. Applications for reasonable accommodations are considered within a published framework of principles established by an Expert Advisory Group. The range of accommodations available to candidates with dyslexia include:-

- The use of special examination centres

- Provision of readers for candidates who have reading difficulties

- Provision for scribes, tape-recorders, and the use of computer technology for candidates who have writing difficulties

- Exemption from the assessment of spelling and grammar in language subjects

You have raised a specific issue in relation to the provision of additional writing time for students with dyslexia sitting Project Maths given the language based format of the examination.

The position is that additional writing time is not an accommodation that can be sanctioned in its own right. Extra time is awarded to students for whom the use of a scribe has been sanctioned as there is a time needed for dictation and otherwise in dealing with the scribe. It is also granted to students who meet the eligibility criteria for the use of a tape recorder or other recording device or a word processor, etc, but who are unable to make use of these aides under examination conditions. For example, a student may be granted the use of a word processor because their writing speed is slow. However, their ability to type may also be impaired. In such a case the student would instead be allowed to avail of additional time (up to 10 minutes per hour) to complete their examination in writing. Additional time may also be approved in the case of a student who because of a visual difficulty has been granted access to modified examination papers.

It is also important to point out that the examinations in many subjects require candidates to be able to read questions with varying amounts of text. The revised syllabi in Mathematics, introduced under the government's Project Maths initiative, have an increased emphasis on developing students' abilities to use mathematics in contexts, to engage in concrete and abstract problem-solving activities, to develop and demonstrate a deeper understanding of mathematics, including the capacity to interpret and explain results. In order to adequately reflect these syllabus intentions, the examinations involve somewhat more reading and writing than the previous examinations, since setting problems in context in a written examination clearly requires text. While the ability to read quickly and accurately is not part of the test domain, the capacity to extract the relevant mathematical meaning from such text is. That is, it is explicitly one of the target skills being tested, in accordance with the syllabus. Despite the somewhat increased reading load, the mathematics examinations on the revised syllabus still involve a modest amount of reading in comparison to many other subjects on the curriculum. Likewise, although candidates in mathematics are now more frequently asked to give a reason or explanation for an answer, the amount of answering in text form required is also still modest in comparison to other subjects.

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