What are HSC disability provisions?

HSC disability provisions

Disability provisions provide students with practical support to access, read and respond to the HSC exams.

In providing disability provisions for the Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams, NESA complies with the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Commonwealth) (DDA) and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, issued under the DDA.

Disability provisions are one way that NESA ensures there are reasonable adjustments available to students with disability so that they can access and participate in the HSC on the same basis as students without disability.

What is covered

Disability provisions address students’ exam needs related to learning, medical, vision or hearing disabilities. For example, students with a:

• learning disability may use reader or writer
• medical disability may access toilet breaks or use adapted furniture
• vision disability may use braille or large-print papers
• hearing disability may use an oral or sign interpreter.

What is not covered

Disability provisions do not apply to:

• Conditions that may or may not occur during an exam (episodic), eg migraines. An occurrence of this type of condition would be covered by an illness/misadventure application, except when there are identifiable factors that might contribute to, or trigger, a condition. For example, if fluorescent lighting frequently results in a migraine, a student might request seating near a window with natural light.
• Loss of preparation time or difficulty undertaking a course, eg a musical instrument being broken some months before the HSC.  
• Difficulty with reading due to English being an additional language/dialect for a student.

Schools’ responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992

All schools must ensure that students with disability are able to access and participate in education on the same basis as other students.

Schools should regularly assess their students’ learning needs and implement adjustments as required to support students on a day-to-day basis throughout their schooling. Adjustments provided in school may change over time in response to a student’s changing needs. Adjustments should be determined collaboratively with the student, parents/carers and other people who support the educational needs of the student. It may be considered discriminatory if adjustments are not in place for identified students with a disability.

Schools are responsible for any decisions made at school level to offer adjustments to students with a disability in school-based tasks. School-determined adjustments will not necessarily apply in the HSC exams as what is assessed in school-based assessments may be different to HSC exams. In addition, for HSC exams, each application is assessed to ensure consistency and equity across the entire HSC cohort. NESA only approves disability provisions for the HSC exams.

When providing students with adjustments for school-based assessments, schools are encouraged to take into account NESA’s key messages and principles for exam modifications to ensure that, where appropriate, adjustments are put in place that are consistent with disability provisions granted for the HSC.

Provisions granted for school based assessment may not be approved for NESA external exams. Each application submitted to NESA will be assessed to determine eligibility for provisions.

Contact us

For advice on other provisions, schools can contact the NESA Student Support:

• phone: (02) 9367 8117
• email: studentsupport@nesa.nsw.edu.au

Parents and students should contact their school in the first instance.