Addressing equity for children with disabilities in school examinations and assessments

Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires parties to ensure that “Persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and secondary education on an equal basis with others” and that “Reasonable accommodation of the individual’s requirements is provided”. How can reasonable accommodations be provided in school examinations without undermining the integrity of the assessment? How can we ensure that assessments are accessible and also avoid giving learners an unfair advantage? This session will address these questions through an exploration of Assessment Arrangements for national examinations in Scotland. In particular we will consider whether assistive technology can provide a more consistent and independent method of support in examinations compared to human readers and scribes.