The Centre for Infrastructural and Technological Advancement for the Blind (CITAB) has criticised the newly launched National Special and Inclusive Basic Education Minimum Standards, Implementation Guidelines and Functional Difficulty Early Identification Tool introduced by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), arguing that the framework lacks the enforcement mechanisms needed to guarantee inclusive education for children with disabilities.
In a press statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday, the Executive Chairman of CITAB, Comrade Jolomi George Fenemigho, said the standards, though well documented, would have little impact without legally binding obligations, effective monitoring and sanctions for non-compliance. He warned that children with disabilities would continue to face exclusion from schools if implementation relied solely on voluntary compliance.
According to Fenemigho, Nigeria’s challenge is not the absence of policies but the failure to enforce existing commitments. He maintained that public and private schools still deny admission to children with disabilities, fail to provide reasonable accommodation and, in some cases, isolate learners with disabilities instead of integrating them into mainstream classrooms.
He called for legally enforceable accessibility standards across all schools, backed by regular inspections and penalties for institutions that fail to comply. “Nigeria has never suffered from a scarcity of beautifully written policy documents. What we suffer from is an absolute lack of enforcement, accountability and political will,” he said.
CITAB also identified what it described as major shortcomings in the UBEC framework, including the absence of a single national accessibility standard for schools, delays in accessing counterpart funding through State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs), and the lack of guaranteed provision of assistive learning materials such as Braille resources, tactile teaching aids, screen readers and mobility canes.
The organisation further expressed concern over the supervision structure within the education system, arguing that oversight conducted solely within government institutions may limit accountability. It urged the inclusion of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) as independent monitors to assess compliance and verify progress on inclusive education nationwide.
Fenemigho stressed that genuine inclusion should ensure that learners with disabilities study alongside their peers in accessible classrooms, receive instruction from trained teachers and have access to appropriate learning materials, digital resources, accessible infrastructure and safe transportation from the first day of school.
He argued that identifying children with disabilities without providing the necessary educational support and assistive technologies does not amount to meaningful inclusion. “Identifying a visually impaired child without supplying Braille, audio and digital tools merely logs their disability; it does not educate them. Equipping teachers with checklists while classrooms remain physically inaccessible and teachers are untrained is not inclusion; it is bureaucracy,” he said.
CITAB urged the Federal Ministry of Education, UBEC and State Ministries of Education to establish a single national accessibility standard for all public and private basic schools, conduct annual joint inspections with OPDs, and suspend schools that fail to meet minimum accessibility and inclusion requirements until corrective measures are implemented.
The organisation also called for dedicated funding for disability inclusion, compulsory disability-inclusive teacher training, improved access to assistive technologies and the annual publication of disability-disaggregated data on school enrolment, retention and learning outcomes. Fenemigho concluded by urging government to ensure disability-led organisations play an active role in monitoring implementation, saying the principle of “Nothing About Us Without Us” should be reflected in practice rather than remain a slogan.
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