and the parent group Féach’s representative in the subsequent section on access also make this recommendation to supports and resources. Challenge of Producing Books in Time/Early Ordering The NBPC representative gives the example of the length of time it takes to produce a post primary Maths textbook to demonstrate the NBPC’s challenge: you have a secondary school Maths book, it can take anything from five months “If to a year or even longer because there is no automised software that can just read in the print and spit it out in Braille, for lack of a better word.” To ensure timely production and delivery of books, the NBPC stress early ordering is extremely important: are asking students, if possible, to give us their orders by mid-November to “We mid-January. If they manage to do that, if the schools manage to do that we guarantee a minimum transcription output, and we fulfilled our guarantees between 98 and 100% over the last few years. “ The NBPC representative recognises that this is also challenging for the schools to confirm in advance and this is where delays can occur: for many schools that’s very difficult to achieve and it’s very difficult “Unfortunately for the visiting teachers to get the orders from the schools because they are under pressure in terms of how many students will we have, what teacher allocation is there, are there curriculum changes, are there book changes, so the reality is that half of our orders won't come in till about May, June this year, even July, which puts us under pressure”. To overcome the challenge late curriculum and books changes place on the production of accessible educational materials, the NBPC recommend introducing an curriculum for students with visual impairments”. Agreeing on core texts “agreed she believes is the solution, as she explains: you had core at every school level from Junior Infants through to Leaving “If Certificate that would make our lives a lot easier. You might have the situation, for example, that you have five or six children with visual impairment in five or six different schools around the country, let’s say fifth class primary school and they all do Maths, but they order five different Maths books because we have this huge
and the parent group Féach’s representative in the subsequent section on access also make this recommendation to supports and resources. Challenge of Producing Books in Time/Early Ordering The NBPC representative gives the example of the length of time it takes to produce a post primary Maths textbook to demonstrate the NBPC’s challenge: “If you have a secondary school Maths book, it can take anything from five months to a year or even longer because there is no automised software that can just read in the print and spit it out in Braille, for lack of a better word.” To ensure timely production and delivery of books, the NBPC stress early ordering is extremely important: “We are asking students, if possible, to give us their orders by mid-November to mid-January. If they manage to do that, if the schools manage to do that we guarantee a minimum transcription output, and we fulfilled our guarantees between 98 and 100% over the last few years. “ The NBPC representative recognises that this is also challenging for the schools to confirm in advance and this is where delays can occur: “Unfortunately for many schools that’s very difficult to achieve and it’s very difficult for the visiting teachers to get the orders from the schools because they are under pressure in terms of how many students will we have, what teacher allocation is there, are there curriculum changes, are there book changes, so the reality is that half of our orders won't come in till about May, June this year, even July, which puts us under pressure”. To overcome the challenge late curriculum and books changes place on the production of accessible educational materials, the NBPC recommend introducing an “agreed curriculum for students with visual impairments”. Agreeing on core texts she believes is the solution, as she explains: “If you had core at every school level from Junior Infants through to Leaving Certificate that would make our lives a lot easier. You might have the situation, for example, that you have five or six children with visual impairment in five or six different schools around the country, let’s say fifth class primary school and they all do Maths, but they order five different Maths books because we have this huge