Intellectually impaired students are not being given adequate support services due to an “unnecessary” administrative process, a report suggests.
The report, commissioned by the Education Ministry, found that the Access Disability Support Committee and the Examination Assessment Unit were often unable to offer their services to Matsec students until after assessing their eligibility for support.
Addressing a press conference yesterday, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo described the process as a waste of human resources.
The report, drafted by educational consultant Josanne Ghirxi, found that as many as 600 applications for support services had been received by the organisations between September and January last year. Each application, it said, took 10 hours to process. Mr Bartolo said this meant that support services for students with intellectual impairment sitting for Matsec examinations or studying at secondary and tertiary schools came to a grinding halt during the application processing period. This, he said, was because the same officials conducted the tests and provided support services.
Many parents lose hope for their children at this delicate stage. This is a tragedy and has to change
The report recommended that the process, which runs parallel to another conducted by the students’ secondary schools, was unnecessary and should be removed.
“Why should we waste our human resources on double checking something which was already established a few years earlier? Isn’t this unnecessary?” Mr Bartolo asked.
The minister said that of the 5,636 adolescents currently unemployed and out of educational institutions, 534 were disabled.
Last year 496 students requested examination assistance. Of those, 156 were dyslexic while the rest suffered from a range of conditions, mostly related to autism. “Many parents lose hope for their children at this delicate stage.
“This is a tragedy and has to change,” he said.
The report also recommended the revision of examination materials such as the colour of papers and fonts.
The minister said he would be conducting an extensive consultation process with the organisations to rectify the situation.
He said he hoped a new policy would be drafted on the matter by the end of the scholastic year.