Educational Accommodations | The Scaffold Initiative

Confirmed frameworks

Boards with documented accommodation processes

CAIE India: CBSE / State India: ICSE IB UK USA UAE Spain Hong Kong France Caribbean Turkey Zambia

CAIE (A-Levels and IGCSE)

Access arrangements cover learning difficulties, disabilities, or medical conditions, extra time, separate invigilation, and assistive technology among them.

Evidence must be recent (typically within the last four years) and produced by a qualified professional. Requests are submitted by the school, not the family.

Arrangements must reflect the student's normal way of working, they need to already be in use in regular classwork before being requested for the board exam.

Same procedure applies at IGCSE: submitted by the school through Cambridge's access-arrangements process, evidence-backed, and consistent with the student's normal way of working.

At A Level the framework is unchanged, same evidence standard, same school-led application, same normal-way-of-working principle.

CBSE and State Boards

CWSN accommodations are grounded in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: extra time, reader or scribe, laptop without internet, and calculator among the standard provisions.

Schools register eligible students through the Pariksha Sangam portal during an annual window (typically September). Approved accommodations then print onto the admit card.

Check CBSE's own circular for the current year's dates rather than relying on any fixed date quoted elsewhere.

ICSE / ISC (CISCE)

The Guidelines for Comprehensive Support Measures in Examinations were revised in 2024/25 to extend beyond RPWD Act benchmark disabilities and include Borderline Intellectual Functioning and other non-benchmark needs.

Provisions include 20 minutes of compensatory time per hour, scribe or reader, and special question papers where relevant.

Students register a Unique Disability ID (UDID); schools then apply through CISCE's CAREERS portal.

IB (Diploma / MYP)

Governed by IB's Access and Inclusion Policy. Requests are submitted by the school's IB Coordinator, not directly by the family.

Evidence must be based on standardized psychoeducational testing and reflect current, not past, need.

UK (GCSE / A Level via JCQ)

One unified framework across all UK exam boards, run by the Joint Council for Qualifications. Schools apply through Access Arrangements Online, with evidence of normal way of working required and deadlines roughly January to March depending on arrangement type.

For ADHD and autism specifically, a formal diagnosis alone is often sufficient, psychometric testing isn't always required. That is a meaningfully lighter bar than most other boards.

USA (IDEA / Section 504)

Two distinct legal tracks, worth understanding as separate systems rather than variants of the same one.

IDEA

Special education. Requires a full evaluation and an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Ends at high school graduation.

Section 504 / ADA

Accommodations without an IEP. Extends through higher education and is the more common route for accommodations-only needs like extra time.

UAE

Federal Ministerial Resolution 647/2020 requires an Individual Education Plan for every Student of Determination.

The Ministry of Education issues exam-specific circulars each series covering advance exam copies for special-education staff, visual aids, and alternative formats. Dubai's KHDA runs a parallel Inclusive Education Policy Framework.

The request goes through the school's inclusion team, built around the student's existing IEP.

Spain (EBAU / EvAU / PAU)

The NEAE (special educational support needs) process covers extra time, oral reading of exam questions, computer use, and dyslexia-specific correction criteria that don't penalize spelling.

Requests are made through the school before the exam.

Important caveat: each autonomous community sets its own deadlines and channels, shared principle, regional execution.

Hong Kong (HKDSE)

Known as Special Examination Arrangements, administered by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority.

Applied for through the school roughly two years ahead of the exam (September of the S5 school year). HKEAA maintains its own portal and candidate handbook.

France (Baccalauréat / Brevet)

Three overlapping mechanisms: PAP (no MDPH recognition needed, fastest to set up), PPS (for MDPH-recognized disabilities), and exam-specific aménagements requested separately from either, most commonly tiers-temps, a third more time.

Requests go through the school doctor and rectorat, built on the existing PAP or PPS.

Governed by circulaire n° 2019-088, updated July 2025.

Caribbean (CXC / CSEC, incl. Jamaica)

The Caribbean Examinations Council publishes a dedicated Students with Special Needs policy: scribe, reader, or practical assistant with an extra 15 minutes per hour, sign language interpreter, and a referral process to the Subject Award Committee for candidates with specific learning disabilities.

The assistant is appointed by the Local Registrar rather than chosen by the family.

Turkey (MEB, centralized exams)

The Ministry of National Education's Sınav Tedbir Hizmetleri covers the centralized LGS exam: 20 minutes of extra time, single-room testing, certified reader or scribe support, foreign-language exemptions for qualifying conditions, and home or hospital exam options.

The request starts with the parent's application and is routed through Guidance and Research Centers (RAM) into the MEBBİS/e-Okul system.

Zambia (ECZ)

Examinations Council of Zambia Circular No. ECZ/101/1/9 governs exam administration for special-needs learners: separate exam rooms for physically impaired candidates, scribes for candidates with cerebral palsy, readers for dyslexia, and additional time.

Applied for through the school at registration.

Where we're pushing for change

We work with students in these countries, and none of them yet have a comprehensive, board-level framework for exam accommodations. We're not waiting for that to change, we're working to change it.

Pakistan Nigeria Thailand Malaysia Philippines Morocco Egypt Bangladesh Saudi Arabia Peru Iraq Uzbekistan

Pakistan
A national Higher Education Commission policy exists for university students, but there's no comprehensive accommodation framework at the school board (BISE) level. Punjab's provincial special-education policy is still described as in development.
Nigeria
WAEC references accommodations for special needs candidates in passing, with no published evidence standard, request procedure, or list of what's actually available.
Thailand
The legal right to inclusive education is well established under the Persons with Disabilities Empowerment Act, but no documented exam-specific accommodation procedure exists for the O-NET comparable to what India, the UK, or UAE have built.
Malaysia
A bill proposing the right to sit exams with accommodations (extra time, scribes, enlarged print, separate rooms) has been introduced but, as of late 2025, not yet passed into law. General special-education infrastructure (OKU card, PPKI/PPI programmes) exists; exam accommodation specifically does not.
Philippines
RA 11650 (2022) mandates inclusive education broadly and requires Individualized Education Plans, but no specific national-exam accommodation mechanism has been published alongside it.
Morocco
A national inclusive-education program has driven real gains in enrollment and physical accessibility, ramps and adapted facilities in over 7,000 schools, but this addresses access to school, not exam accommodations. No documented Baccalauréat-specific procedure was found.
Egypt
The Ministry of Education has stated that special-needs students are exempted from the standard electronic Thanaweya Amma format, but no published procedure defines what accommodations are available or how a family requests them.
Bangladesh
General disability-accommodation frameworks exist for national civil-service exams (compensatory time, scribes), but no equivalent, publicly documented policy was found for the SSC/HSC board exams most students actually sit.
Saudi Arabia
A robust general special-education legal framework exists (IEPs modeled directly on the US IDEA), but nothing documented specifically addresses exam-day accommodations for national assessments.
Peru
National learning assessments have documented accessibility provisions (Braille, Peruvian Sign Language, accessible materials), but Peru has no single terminal school-leaving exam comparable to a Baccalauréat or A Levels, university entrance is per-institution, so there's no one board-level accommodation framework to point families to.
Iraq
The governing decree still routes students into separate special classes and schools rather than accommodating them within mainstream exams, and explicitly covers only slow learners and visual/hearing impairment, neurodivergence isn't addressed. Visually impaired students are exempted from the math paper entirely rather than given an accommodated version of it.
Uzbekistan
Inclusive education is officially described by government sources as at an early stage of development. The one exam-related concession that exists is a lowered university entrance passing score for disabled applicants, a blunt workaround, not an accommodation.

If you're based in one of these countries and want to help push this forward, get in touch, we're building the advocacy case city by city.

How to request accommodations

A four-step checklist that applies to most boards

Get a formal evaluation from a qualified professional recognized by the relevant board.

Bring the report to the school, SENCO, exams officer, or IB Coordinator, depending on curriculum. Nearly every board requires the school to be the applicant of record.

Start using the accommodation in regular classwork immediately, this becomes the evidence trail for normal way of working.

Track deadlines by academic year. Registration windows are typically narrow and most boards do not reopen them for latecomers.

Request Letter Template

To: [SENCO / Exams Officer / IB Coordinator name]
[School name]

Date: [DD Month YYYY]

Subject: Request for exam access arrangements for [Student full name], [Year / Grade], [Board / Programme]

Dear [Name],

I am writing to formally request exam access arrangements for my child, [Student full name], for the upcoming [exam series / academic year].

[Student first name] was formally assessed on [date of assessment] by [assessor name and qualification], and the report (attached) confirms a diagnosis of [condition]. The report recommends the following accommodations:

  - [Accommodation 1, e.g. 25% extra time]
  - [Accommodation 2, e.g. separate room / small group setting]
  - [Accommodation 3, e.g. use of a laptop without internet]

These accommodations are already in use in [Student first name]'s regular classwork and reflect their normal way of working. I have attached:

  1. The full assessment report dated [date].
  2. [Any prior IEP / 504 / PAP / UDID documentation].
  3. [Examples of classwork demonstrating current use of accommodations, if relevant].

Please let me know what further information you need from us to submit the application through [Pariksha Sangam / CAREERS / Access Arrangements Online / HKEAA portal / MEBBİS, etc.] within the current registration window.

Thank you for your support.

Kind regards,
[Parent / Guardian name]
[Phone]
[Email]

Assistive tools

Tools students actually use

Grouped by function. No affiliate links, no endorsements, just what works.

Reading

Text-to-speech: NaturalReader, Speechify
Dyslexia-friendly reading aids: OpenDyslexic, Bionic Reading

Writing

Speech-to-text / dictation (built into most operating systems)
Grammarly, executive-function support for drafting and revision

Planning

Mind-mapping for essay planning: MindMeister, XMind