Attending school is the main job of children and youth. Students with physical disabilities faced many accessibility barriers at school even before the pandemic and the introduction of remote education. They will continue to face accessibility barriers, including architectural barriers in schools and playgrounds, access to digital learning and technology, and organizational barriers, as families struggle to understand the special education system.
Over the past three years, the Ministry of Seniors Affairs and Accessibility (MSAA) Standard Development Committee (SDC) for Education Kindergarten to Grade 12 has been meeting regularly to make recommendations on how to improve accessibility for students with disabilities.
At the start of the process, MSAA held a public consultation on concerns about accessibility in education. The findings from this consultation formed the basis of the work of the SDC Education K to 12 and focused the work on the following barriers: