Support for special needs learners critical for their future

Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) received 2 061 Access Arrangement Applications for the 2022 Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE). These are exclusive rights that enable special needs learners to be provided with support during national examinations.

Of the 2 061, 1 804 candidates had supporting evidence from specialists including psychologists following educational assessments, and were approved, while 257 were not approved as they did not provide the required supporting evidence of their learning disability and limitations.

According to BEC’s Corporate Communications Manager, Fingile Makgalemele, special considerations were extended to 57 candidates out of 65 that had applied. Makgalemele told The Midweek Sun in an interview that in the 2022 JCE, there were 1 788 candidates with Special Needs, including 1 542 with Learning Disability – that is including those with dyslexia, dysgraphia, intellectually challenged, among others, 10 with Physical Disability, 42 Hearing Impairment, 67 Visual Impairment, 67 Medical Condition, 56 Multiple Disabilities and four having other type of disabilities. In the 2022 JCE, 1 039 candidates had access arrangements of readers, 958 had scribes or writers, 24 had sign language interpreter, while 72 were provided with a practical assistant. In addition to special arrangements and access arrangements, candidates with learning disabilities and hearing impairments write modified exams, while those with visual impairment have their exam in Braille format.

For the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, special needs candidates’ modal grade is D followed by Unclassified U for the three years. The overall pass rate of A to E has been increasing for the past three years with 2022 recording a pass rate of 80.99 percent, which is an increase of 4.65 percent from 2021. Makgalemele further explains that the credit pass - A to C is at 29.87 percent in the just released JCE results of 2022, which is an increase of 4.05 percent from 2021. In 2022, grade A was attained by 0.95 percent of the candidates, which is a decrease of 0.39 percent from 2021. In the recently released JCE results, categories covering Learning Disability, Visual Impairment, Medical Condition and Multiple Disabilities have candidates who managed to obtain grade A at 0.84 percent, 2.99 percent, 1.49 percent and 1.79 percent respectively. The special need types with A to C percentage pass of 30 percent or more are of other disabilities followed by medical conditions, visual impairment, physical disability and multiple disability. Hearing Impairment has the largest proportion of candidates at grade D while Physical Disability has the highest proportion of candidates assigned U. Makgalemele says to ensure that their organization is prepared to offer the needed support, they train Chief Invigilators on Access Arrangements and Special Consideration which gives them a guide on how to administer examinations for candidates with special needs, as well as the arrangements that can be given to the candidates. In addition, there is provision of regular documents with procedures that schools can follow. Because of the shortage of centres for psycho educational assessments, and appropriate specialists, BEC accepts reports from independent specialists in addition to those that are from the Ministry, as well as those provided by teacher specialists. “The reports are subjected to scrutiny and must satisfy the BEC standards,” Makgalemele says. During examinations, BEC experiences challenges of eligible candidates who do not have supporting evidence or have not been assessed to diagnose and determine how they should be supported. In addition, there are often late applications from centres, which have an impact on the preparations that need to be made for the candidates, as well as rising number of candidates that centres are not able to adequately cater for.