Students who require additional exam aids such as a tape recorder, reading assistance, a subject exemption or a spelling waiver are often surprised to find their exam certificate contains explanatory footnotes stating the accommodations they received.

While this practice was overturned by the Equality Tribunal last November, the Department of Education is appealing the decision and students will not find out until July whether their exam scripts will be marked or not.

As a result, many students are reluctant to avail of services to which they are entitled.

"Giving a student with dyslexia an accommodation which he or she needs . . . such as a reader, or a spelling and grammar waiver . . . and then indicating on the certificate that such accommodation has been given is unfair, " said Rosie Bissett of the Dyslexia Association.

The association receives numerous calls every year from students, parents and teachers who are concerned that the annotation will be misunderstood by prospective employers. "It gives the impression that such certificates are different or inferior and an employer not understanding the annotation may well discriminate against a job applicant, " said Bissett.

The number of students receiving accommodations in their exams has doubled in the past four years, with over 12,000 students availing of the services in 2006. When two Leaving Cert students took a claim of discrimination against the Department of Education last year, there was relief among students and parents when the annotation of exam scripts was abolished.

Relief turned to rage, however, when the Department announced it intended to vigorously contest the finding on the grounds of fairness and transparency.

"My department has examined the findings and is concerned both that the widening of access through the use of exemptions, coupled with annotations, has not been fully understood in this case and that the fundamental nature of the accommodations being provided has been questioned, " said Education Minister Mary Hanafin. The appeal is scheduled for hearing on 23 July.

"We were very disappointed when we found out the Department was appealing, " said Maureen Kelly from Dublin, whose son Faolan did his Junior Cert last year.

"Faolan is dyslexic and he never had any idea his exam certificate was going to be marked in any way. He was incredibly irate when he found out. It is terribly unfair to supply these accommodations and then mark the students out as having had assistance.

That assistance is there to give a level playing field to students. It's not as if the department is doing them a favour."

Kelly and her son say they are determined that, by the time Faolan is doing his Leaving Cert, his exam script will not contain any footnotes. "It is very frustrating to go through this long, drawn-out process of getting special accommodation for the exams and then having it effectively done away with, " said Kelly.