‘Too much money spent on special exam treatment assessments’ – Education Minister

Hundreds of thousands of euro are spent to assess whether students who apply for Exam Access Arrangements have legitimate impairments, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said.

“The government pours a lot of resources into certifying whether, for example, autistic students who apply for special exam treatment are actually autistic,” Bartolo told a conference held to discuss means of reducing bureaucracy within the education system. “I’m sure that that money will be better spent on improving the psychological help that we offer to those students.”

Exam Access Arrangements are special O and A level exam provisions granted by MATSEC to students with proven impairments. For example, students with attention deficit disorder can be granted supervised rest and movement breaks, while students with hand movement difficulties can be allotted a scribe. According to MATSEC, the number of exam candidates who requested such special arrangements has tripled from 222 candidates in 2006 to 664 of them in 2013. Around 95% of applications submitted last year were approved.

While Bartolo acknowledged that digital technology has helped reduce bureaucracy, he warned educators that not all students are IT-literate.

“Thousands of people, particularly those living in poverty, still don’t have access to the Internet,” he said. “It is therefore crucial that front-offices aren’t replaced by online applications.”

During the conference, Bartolo also pointed out that fifth-form students are too inundated with exams, with their O level exams starting around a month after their mock exams end.   

“Form 5 is such a critical year for students but they’re made to sit for far too many exams in such a short period of time,” he said.