Exams need to be accessible, NDCS tells Government

NDCS is lobbying the Government to change the law to make sure that deaf students are not held back when they're doing exams. This follows long-standing concerns that the organisations who design the exams are failing to consider the needs of disabled students.

In 2005, the qualifications regulator withdrew much of the support available to disabled students in exams. NDCS successfully led a campaign to reinstate the support and have since been working with government, the qualification bodies and regulators to encourage them to go further.

The Government has now proposed a range of changes in the Equality Bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament. However, NDCS and a range of other organistions, believe that further changes are needed and have briefed a range of MPs on these issues. 

In a debate on the Bill on Tuesday 23 June, Mark Harper MP said that: 

"There are a lot of examples of deaf candidates, in particular, finding that qualifications providers are not making reasonable adjustments for them to get qualifications and are not thinking creatively enough about how they could test ability and learning rigorously, thereby protecting the value of the qualification.

One example... involved a profoundly deaf candidate who was asked a question about listening to music on his GCSE English exam. He had never experienced music and so was not familiar with how people enjoy and talk about it. That question was not necessarily appropriate for a deaf student. He could easily have been asked to demonstrate his English ability without being asked that inappropriate question."

NDCS will be continuing to raise this issue in debates on the Equality Bill to press for changes that ensure deaf students are not held back by examination questions or papers which are inappropriate.

More information:

Briefing on examinations and the Equality Bill by NDCS, Skill, RNIB and Afasic (23 kb)

The Equality Bill (external website)

Have your say:

Have you come across examples of exams which featured inappropriate questions for a deaf students or which were inaccessible in any other way? If so, please let us know! You can leave a comment at the bottom of this page or you can email us.