POLICY DEVELOPMENT FOR INCLUSIVE TERTIARY EDUCATION in NIGERIA

The quest for education is considered a right rather than a privilege in many countries. The World Health Organization report on disability estimates that over a billion people worldwide live with some form of disability, corresponding to about 15% of the world's population. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in Nigeria, about 19 million people are living with disabilities, approximately 20% of the country’s population. In the context of Nigerian higher education, access for students with disabilities remains elusive despite the government's commitment to equality of education under the National Policy on Education (2018) and the Discrimination Against Persons with Disability (Prohibition) Act (2018). Although Nigeria ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) in 2007, the trend of including disability in higher education remains slow, with many students with disabilities facing barriers in accessing education. For students with disabilities, university education does not just comprise the acquisition of knowledge, language, and communication but also societal and vocational skills. These include the use of adaptation aids, which are mostly customized to fit their physique and level/nature of disabilities. These aids include but are not limited to motorized wheelchairs, braces, or crutches for mobility; seats designed to assist in movement and posture; communication aids; aids for turning pages of books, and others. Many of these are, however, lacking in most Nigerian universities. Nigeria introduced its first home-grown National Policy on Education in 1977. Since then, several initiatives aimed at improving special education for children with special needs have been launched, such as the Inclusive Education Project (IEP) and the Special Education Needs Intervention Program (SENIP), aimed at integrating children with disabilities into mainstream education.