Increasing employability of persons with disabilities

Due to the fact that persons with disabilities are frequently excluded from regular primary and secondary education, few persons with disabilities attend tertiary education. Furthermore, mainstream technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems are often not accessible for persons with disabilities, including a lack of disability awareness among teaching staff as well as inaccessible training methods and tools. Segregated vocational rehabilitation and training centres specialised in catering for people with disabilities are still found in many countries. These centres usually only provide a limited set of skills development programmes. Further, these programmes are often either not aligned with labour market demands or designed based on the belief that persons with disabilities are only capable of working in the informal economy.

Concrete measure to make TVET systems and programmes more inclusive include building TVET staff’s capacities to teach trainees with disabilities, increasing the accessibility of TVET centres, providing reasonable accommodation and adapting entry criteria, teaching methods, materials and evaluation methods to take disability-related needs into account.

Workplace-learning, particularly apprenticeships, for people with disabilities should also be part of mainstream TVET programmes.