My name is Donna J. Jodhan. I am a blind Canadian advocate and cybersecurity student. In November 2024 I was awarded a full $7,500 USD scholarship to the Apex Program, a 12-week CompTIA Network+ and Security+ training initiative that specifically markets itself to blind, visually-impaired, disabled people and veterans.

I spent a full year studying for the CompTIA Network+ exam, overcoming numerous barriers along the way. My “scholarship” turned out to be roughly 21 Word documents, no accessible learning management system, and virtually no human guidance on how a blind person should actually prepare. With the help of my sighted business partner, I still managed to learn all 21 chapters of material and was finally ready to test.

Pearson VUE, the global exam provider for CompTIA, approved my accommodations and scheduled me for an in-person exam on October 1, 2025 in Canada. I followed every rule. I went through airport-style security. I was not allowed to use my own screen reader and had to rely entirely on a sighted reader (proctor) supplied by Pearson.

The very first exam question contained diagrams. There were no validated alternative text (ALT) descriptions for those diagrams. My reader did not know how to describe them and admitted she didn’t know what to do. Several of the next questions also relied on diagrams with no accessible descriptions. Under those conditions, I could not take the exam in any fair or meaningful way. I left the testing center without being able to complete the test.

When I later contacted Pearson, I was told that readers are expected to “read the exam exactly as it appears on screen” and that I had simply “chosen to stop” the exam. The underlying accessibility failure — the absence of standardized, validated descriptions for visual content and the refusal to allow a screen reader — was not acknowledged. Meanwhile, CompTIA has not publicly addressed how blind candidates are expected to access diagram-based questions at all.

I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for equal access to the same exam content that sighted candidates see.

I am calling on Pearson VUE and CompTIA to:

👉 Provide fully accessible versions of the Network+ and Security+ exams (and other certifications) for blind and low-vision candidates, including validated ALT descriptions for all diagrams and visual content.

👉 Allow blind candidates to use approved screen-reader setups, or provide equivalent accessible technology, rather than forcing us to depend on untrained human readers to improvise diagram descriptions.

👉 Work with blind subject-matter experts and accessibility professionals to audit and fix their exam delivery and accommodation processes, and to publish a clear, verifiable plan and timeline for these changes.

👉 Offer a truly accessible re-test option to me and to any other blind candidate who has been blocked by these barriers.

If this happened to your blind child, parent, sibling, or friend — if they invested a year of work only to be turned away by inaccessible diagrams and boilerplate responses — you would demand better too.

Please add your name to tell Pearson VUE and CompTIA that accessible exams are not optional, and that blind people have the right to earn these credentials on equal terms.