Accessibility Statement for LWETB FET Website

Longford and Westmeath Education and Training Board Further Education are committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020.  

This accessibility statement applies to the website: https://lwetbfet.ie  
 
Accessibility Features of this Website 

This website uses ReachDeck, assistive technology software. Click on the floating ReachDeck icon to activate. ReachDeck provides text to speech translation, spoken and written translation. If you would like to read our website in Irish, just click on the globe icon within the ReachDeck menu and select Irish from the dropdown menu of languages. It also has as a range of other customisable options to increase the accessibility of our website are also available within the software e.g. text magnification, screen mask, a web page simplifier. 

Compliance Status 

We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so, aim to adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA and the EU Web Accessibility Directive. This website is partially compliant  due to the non-accessible content listed below: 

Non-accessible Content 

Some parts of the website are not fully accessible, including: 

• – PDFs: Some are not fully tagged or optimised for screen reader use. Some PDFs may: 
• – be missing titles and alternative text 
• – language for passages or phrases not specified 
• – contain links, tables, and other elements that are not tagged 
• – have incorrect list structures   
• – Colour Contrast: Minor colour contrast issues in some areas may impact readability for users with visual impairments. 
• – Alt Text: a small number of images may be missing appropriate alternative text. 
  – Some interactive elements, such as embedded forms, may not be fully navigable via keyboard or lack descriptive labels. 
• – Course Finder: the content that populates the course pages is loaded dynamically via a JSON feed from Fetchourses.ie. While we are undertaking steps to ensure this content is displayed in a fully accessible manner, some items displayed at present may not adhere to accessibility standards.   
• – Some ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes need to be corrected.  

This is not an exhaustive list of non-accessible content. Work is on-going to reduce the level of non-accessible content to address them as far as we can. 

Exempted Content 

PDF documents that were published before 23 September 2018 are exempt from these guidelines except where it is related to a service that a member of the public must use.   

Videos or audio published before 23 September 2020 are exempt from WCAG guidelines.   

How We Test and Monitor Accessibility 

We regularly test our website using accessibility evaluation tool ReachDeck Auditor to assess readability and compliance. 

Depending on the content we run additional checks using the following methods: 

• – Microsoft Accessibility Checker 
• – Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker 
• – WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) 
• – Manual keyboard and screen reader navigation checks 
   

What We’re Doing to Improve Accessibility 

• – Ongoing staff training on creating accessible digital content 
• – Continuous updates to website structure and content 
• – Annual accessibility statement reviews 
• – Working group assigned to work on improving accessibility 
• – Updates regularly given to LWETB FET Stakeholders though relevant networks. 
• – We have engaged a web developer to support us with compliance 
• – Accessible templates and components are available 

Feedback and Contact Information 

If you are not satisfied with our website, you should let us know so that we can work to improve them.   We welcome your input, and we will deal with your feedback in confidence with a response from use within five working days. 

Email: [email protected]  
Address: LWETB College of FET, Marlinstown Business Park, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, N91 DN02

Complaints  

For information on making a complaint please see our Complaints Procedure. 

If you are not satisfied with our findings an appeal regarding any decision in relation to a complaint under the Disability Act 2005 can be made in writing to the Office of the Ombudsman. Further details can be found www.obmudsman.ie 

Preparation of this Accessibility Statement 

This statement was prepared by a working group following a review of the website. Automated testing was carried out using an auditing tool ReachDeck. ReachDeck created reports to highlight accessibility issues. These reports were reviewed by against relevant WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria. 
 
This statement was last updated on 14th April 2024. We aim to update this statement as often as significant changes occur.