An 18-year-old dyslexic student has won the first round of his battle to restrain the Minister for Education from marking his Leaving Certificate examination results with an asterisk denoting that he had received special consideration.
Mr Andrew Corbett, of Ballygannon Beg, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, had been granted leave by the High Court to challenge the Minister's decision. Yesterday Mr Justice Herbert was told that an interim arrangement had been reached.
Ms Maureen Clark SC, for the Minister, said the Minister would undertake to the court that Mr Corbett's examination results would be published later this month without any qualification mark.
Ms Clark told Mr Justice Herbert that the Minister was giving the undertaking without prejudice to his right to publish the examination results in November with a qualification mark should the State succeed in defeating Mr Corbett's High Court challenge.
The court had heard that Mr Corbett had completed his Leaving Certificate examination in June of this year and that it was the Minister's intention to include an asterisk in the results, drawing attention to an explanatory note indicating that he had received special consideration.
The special consideration consisted, owing to his special needs, of the provision of a reader whose role was to read the text of examination questions to Mr Corbett to bring him into a position of equality with non-dyslexic students.
Mr Corbett is challenging the Minister's decision on the grounds that it deprives him of equality in the publication of examination results and breaches his constitutional rights, in that such a mark discriminates against him.
Mr Corbett's application for a judicial review of the Minister's decision is expected to be heard at full trial in October.