More students getting special needs dispensation

In its Thursday edition, the daily “De Morgen” writes that in the 2005-2006 academic 374 students with a disability took exams at the Catholic University of Leuven.

This had risen to 1,455 in the 2014-2015 academic year. This is 18.3% or nearly one in five of the total number of students that sat exams at the university.

More than half of these had a learning disorder or a psychiatric disability such as ADHD or autism. Ghent University too has seen an increase in the number of students with special needs from 582 in 2010 to 1,127 in the 2014-2015 academic year.

There is more awareness of learning disorders and a growing number of children are being diagnosed and given help. Since 2008 schools, universities and colleges of higher education in Belgium are legally obliged to make reasonable provision for pupils and students with special needs that are sitting exams.

This varies from exam papers that are printed in a different font, to questions being read out or a student being given extra time to complete his or her examination.