The Leaving Certificate is just a few weeks away yet a Co Kildare teenager is being denied access to vital services that put him at risk of not getting the course he has applied for.
Student at Castledermot Secondary School, Evan McNamara, urgently requires a reader, scribe and spelling and grammar waiver but a letter from the State Examinations Commission is refusing these services.
Evan has been diagnosed with secondary ADHD, Dyspraxia and Dyslexia. He was allocated an individual room, reader along with a grammar and spelling waiver for his Junior Certificate. For his Leaving Certificate, he is being allocated a room of his own but there are no assurances that additional students will not also be there.
Evan wants to study Business & Politics at NUI Maynooth. Without someone to read him the exam questions along with the spelling and grammar waiver, he is concerned that he will not get the necessary points.
His distressed mother, Mags McNamara, said: "We have put up with so much, it was like a death hearing that Evan will not get what he needs to sit the Leaving Certificate. I said I would get out with a placard on the street."
Part of Evan's condition means that he suffers from a high level of anxiety.
Ms McNamara said: "He is going to be so hyped up for the Leaving Cert, by the time he reads the question and he goes to write it, the information has been lost, that is why a reader is needed. Because of his Dyspraxia, he can't hold a pen, his hands get very tired and he gets a pain in his neck. I have not been able to read his writing since he was nine."
Evan has a high IQ but his condition means that he requires additional resources.
Ms McNamara said: “We are trying to keep him calm, if he sits the Leaving Certificate, he will not be able to perform the way he needs for the results.”
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail Deputy Fiona O'Loughlin, who received representations from the families of three students in the area in recent weeks and raised the matter in the Dáil, stated it is extremely frustrating for the families and devastating for the students themselves that the committee turned down two of the three applications for a reader.
Deputy O'Loughlin said: “We pay lip service to supporting persons with special needs and yet the Reasonable Accommodation Independents Appeals Committee has declined Evan in Castledermot a reader, along with another youth attending the Patrician Boys School in Newbridge. In Evan’s case, three psychological reports have been presented citing his excessive anxiety, his history of dyslexia and dyspraxia, his ADHD condition. He has worked extremely hard in school and achieved excellent results in his Junior Certificate when he had resource assistance. However, in his mock Leaving Certificate exams, his results were notably poor, without resources."
A spokesperson from the State Examinations Commission ( SEC), said:" The SEC is fully committed to providing an examination and assessment system with the highest standards of equity and fairness and which enables all candidates to display their achievements. The SEC provides a range of measures in order to facilitate candidates with particular needs under its Scheme of Reasonable Accommodations. These reasonable accommodations are intended to diminish, as far as possible, the impact of a physical or learning difficulty on a candidate’s performance and thus enable a candidate to demonstrate his or her level of attainment. They are not intended to compensate for lack of attainment. The SEC provides a range of measures to facilitate candidates with particular needs. These include the provision of readers and scribes; the production of modified papers; brailed and enlarged papers; the use of tape recorders and personal computers; and exemption or waivers."
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