Disability And Education in India: Policy, Access, And Barriers

This research paper offers a critical analysis of the current status of disability and education in India from a legislative and statistical perspective. While recent policies such as the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD 2016) and National Education Policy (NEP 2020) have established ambitious targets for access to and educational inclusion of people with disabilities, issues of governance, implementation and monitoring of the same strongly contribute to the gap relating to inclusion of people with disabilities in educational institutions. The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2023-2024 shows that just 0.86% of the enrolled number (2.1 million of 247 million students) are identified as Children with Special Needs (CWSN), well below NEP 2020 aspiration of 2.5- Majority among categories of impaired are intellectual (18.5%), locomotor (15.4%) and low vision (13.5%) disabilities while autobiography differences favors boys for autism (73.3%) and hemophilia (73. While inclusive education, 5% reservation in universities and free education up to 18 years of age is mandated for basic disabilities under the RPwD Act 2016, there are problems with teachers' knowledge and competence, accessibility to supportive infrastructure and disability certification, limitations in gender, social and rural bias, affecting girls in particular. It is argued here that attention needs to be on quality inclusive education through teacher training, appropriate learning resources and whole school and community inclusivity as well as on bringing these children in school. A decentralization of disability certifications, better pre-service and in-service teacher education, holistic universal design for learning (UDL) and a robust monitoring system, are suggested to translate policies to a quality education for those with disabilities.