Nearly two-thirds of the disabled population in the age-group of 5-19 in 2011 were attending educational institutions, according to new census data released on Monday. As many as 40.2 lakh (61.2 per cent) out of the total of 65.7 lakh disabled population in the specified age group were attending educational institutions in 2011. This is an improvement of 11 percentage points from 2001 when 33 lakh (50 per cent) of the 65.3 lakh differntly abled persons had attended educational institutions. The enrolment figure is 10 percentage points lower than that of the total population — 71 per cent attending educational institutions.
Data show those who reported to have ‘any other disability’ has the highest percentage (71.2 per cent) of the people attending any educational institution. This was followed by those having visual disability (68 per cent) and hearing difficulty (67 per cent). Twenty-seven per cent of the disabled people in the age group of 5-19, however, have never attended any educational institute, as per the 2011 census data. Around half of the people with ‘multiple disability’ (54.4 per cent) and ‘mental illness’ (50.3 per cent) did not attend any educational institute.
