Students With Disabilities In Higher Education: A Grim Scenario
· Free Press Journal
In March 2025, the Supreme Court of India appointed a National Task Force 2025 ‘to address the mental health concerns of students and prevent the commission of suicides in higher educational institutions’ in the wake of an ‘epidemic’ of student suicides in the country. The Task Force was entrusted with the responsibility to study the underlying causes of students’ suicides, review existing laws, regulations and institutional mechanisms, and recommend preventive, remedial and reformative measures to deal with such an alarming issue.
In June 2026, the Task Force released its interim report to the public. The report is an insightful document that details the complex nature of challenges which students entering higher education face, especially those from marginalised backgrounds. These challenges include social and peer pressure, feelings of isolation, and wide-ranging discrimination based on gender, caste, disability, region, and language.
Visit solvita.blog for more information.
The report, hearteningly, does not confine itself narrowly to student suicides. Instead, it takes a broader view of various discriminations faced by students from different, marginalised backgrounds. In this piece, I will briefly sum up its findings regarding the status of higher education of students with disabilities.
These findings largely draw from a 2024 report by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP), which was based on a survey of 250 students with disabilities in higher education across five states and Delhi. The essence of the report was that inclusion is more symbolic than real at every stage.
It found that despite progressive laws and policies on paper, students with disabilities are largely invisible in our higher education institutions. They account for barely 0.2% of total enrolments. The barriers these students face are cumulative from economic hardship to inaccessible spaces to the lack of institutional support and deeply ingrained social stereotypes.
For many students, the economic hardship is the starting point: most come from families with earnings less than Rs 20,000 a month. The result is that education competes directly with the struggle for survival. Further, day after day, these students have to fight stigma, exhaustion, and denial to simply stay in the system. The various barriers they face are, in fact, systematic flaws that many other students with marginalised backgrounds experience as well.
For students with disabilities, accessibility in terms of infrastructure is still confined to a few ramps and handrails, while little attention is paid to details of accessibility in terms of tactile paths, signage, lifts or digital accessibility. For example, in one prestigious university, a student using a wheelchair had no access to any functional washroom for months till he formally complained! And it is a pattern—accessibility is simply not treated as a systematic right of students with disabilities.
The same tokenism prevails across institutions. A premium medical college had not conducted a mandatory accessibility audit since 2020. Equal opportunities cells exist only on paper without any real power, any long-term strategy or basic responsiveness. Students who need writers or assistive technology have to, repeatedly, beg for help. Again, help is not systematic; it is offered only on a case-by-case basis.
Similarly, stereotypes rule what students with disabilities can or cannot study. In one Delhi University college, these students were ‘nudged’ into a narrow range of humanities courses with little encouragement to explore professional courses or STEM disciplines. Such pigeonholing is not an isolated instance; it happens to almost all students from marginalised backgrounds. Their ambitions are thwarted by prejudices rather than encouraged by possibilities.
Living conditions tell another story of neglect. In one university, six female students with disabilities were bundled into a small room while 40 other students shared 10 washrooms. Yet, these students were grateful that they were ‘allowed in’ rather than outraged at the discrimination! This culture only normalises daily indignities, discourages students from complaining, and erodes their mental and physical health over time. Routinely, students with disabilities are expected to ‘quietly adjust’ rather than demand their right of fair treatment.
At its core, these aspects of infrastructure, procedure, and attitude reflect the systematic bias in favour of ableism. This blinds us at every level to the potential, aspirations, and rights of students who are not ‘normal’. Ironically, this limits the richness of educational experience for everyone, not just for students with disabilities.
Occasionally, such systematic failure leads to devastating consequences. In recent years, one PhD scholar with autism committed suicide after suffering from years of neglect and harassment. One deaf and mute B Tech student ended his life after crushing isolation and academic pressure.
Of course, India is not short on legal commitment. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, mandates non-discrimination, strict accessibility standards, and equal opportunities in education and employment. But these commitments remain scattered and rarely enforced.
The interim report recommends three foundational pillars of a truly inclusive education for all. First, targeted and adequate funding for accessibility, technology and services for all students to ensure dignity and stability and mental peace for the entire student community.
Second, training faculty, administrators, and staff in inclusion and rights-based perspectives to ensure teaching and support truly respond to diversity in every classroom by fostering empathy, social skills, and a sense of belonging.
The third and, perhaps, the most important pillar is accountability. Strong grievance redressal systems, transparency in monitoring and reporting, and regular accessibility audits must be mandated.
Finally, processes must be simple, responsive, and transparent so that students trust that their concerns will be addressed fairly and swiftly.
PS: Will things really change? Unlikely.
Vrijendra taught in a Mumbai college for more than 30 years and has been associated with democratic rights groups in the city.