A lecturer at a reasonably well-respected northern plate-glass university was somewhat perplexed by a student who complained about her poor marks for an essay. She had a statement of Special Educational Needs. She insisted that this had not been taken into account in the marking of her paper. My acquaintance was hauled before the university authorities to explain why he had marked her so low. ‘Because it was awful work, the work of a cretin,’ he replied. Ah, perhaps, they told him. But you haven’t taken into account the fact that she has Special Educational Needs. That’s why the paper was awful. So you need to allow for that fact and mark it as if it had been better.
That is, the exasperated lecturer told me, as if it had been written by someone who wasn’t thick. We have to pretend.
You can get one of these statements, or their replacement, the Education Health and Care plan, apparently, for a whole host of real or fictional disabilities — i.e.,
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