Your education questions answered

I am 19 years old and am a wheelchair user. I was wondering if you are aware of what supports are available to students with disabilities who want to go on to third level?

Support services for students with disabilities at third level have improved greatly in recent years. Each university has a disability officer and each institute of technology has an access officer, whose role is to support students with disabilities.

This support usually begins with an assessment of your particular needs. The disability/access officer will discuss with you the nature of the course you are doing and how you feel your disability may impact on your participation on the course. For example, some courses demand a lot of note-taking and you may feel that you would benefit from having a note-taker or a mini-disc recorder with you in lectures.

Many students with disabilities benefit greatly from using assistive technology, for example voice recognition software could be of use to you if you have difficulty operating a standard keyboard on a computer. Once again, the disability or access officer will be able to advise you on whether AT would be an option for you.

The best advice I can offer is to meet with the disability or access officer as soon as you can to discuss your individual needs.

If an examination paper specifies that, for example, four out of the five questions have to be answered should a student continue with the fifth question if they have time left over after doing four answers? I have two grandchildren, one in Dublin and one in Kilkenny, and their teachers have told them that they should. Is that the correct advice?

Your grandchildren's teachers have given the correct advice. In State examinations the person responsible for correcting a script is obliged to mark all material written on the paper. When the marks are added the student will be awarded their grade, based on the best four questions answered, as in the example given in your question. In any examination where students find themselves finished, prior to the time allocated, it is always advisable to attempt another question, so as to increase their chance of achieving a higher grade.

More on last week's question about applying to the CAO with a PLC qualification under the Higher Education Links Scheme.

Last term, six universities indicated that they were awarding the higher points of 70, 50 and 30 for distinction, merit and pass in the Link Modules subject of the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme, in line with those awarded by the institutes of technology.

The only outstanding college to make the decision was Trinity College Dublin. TCD has now indicated that it will award the higher points in line with every other higher education institute in the State.

Brian Mooney is president of the Institute of Guidance

Counsellors.

E-mail questions to bmooney@irish-times.ie