She discussed the importance of the provision of test accommodations (such as extra time and the use of technology) for students with learning disabilities. Pro Futuro sees this as both a matter of fairness and the realization of Latvia’s responsibility to its students. The State Special Needs Centre and the State Examination Centre said that Latvia lacks practice with these techniques and that these tools have not been proved to be fair in Latvia. Ms Birzniece pointed out that it seems reasonable to believe that that which is shown to be useful and fair outside of LV would be useful and fair in LV. Ms Birzniece also reminded the Secretaries that all licensed special needs programmes in Latvia contain a provision requiring accommodation(s).This strongly suggests that the practice in licensed programmes themselves fails to fully comply with their own regulations. She also noted that experts from both of these Ministry of Education and Science subordinated institutions have participated in international projects regarding assessment generally and for students with special needs and wonders why the expertise from these projects has not been applied in LV.

A decision was made by the Secretaries (point 79 of these minutes) and stipulates that the Ministry of Education and Science form a work group (to include Pro Futuro) that will provide concrete recommendations to the regulations, so to allow students with special needs to have full access to centralized exams.