While you read this article, look up and count six people around you. One of them may experience a significant disability, according to WHO data. If none of them appears to be a person with a disability, it is because that person — that one in six — has already been excluded from where you are.

This is a reality for many persons with disabilities today. Earlier this month the world celebrated International Day of Persons with Disabilities with a call for “Fostering disability-inclusive societies for advancing social progress.” Social progress is meaningless if the exclusion of persons with disabilities persists.

Globally, more than 10% of children and youth with disabilities have been refused entry into school for various reasons. The figures soar above 50% in the least developed countries, according to a 2019 UN report. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted in 2006, obliges the 193 signatory countries not to exclude persons with disabilities from compulsory education and to provide reasonable accommodation for them. Progress has been slow and inaccessible school facilities remain a major barrier among many others such as lack of resources and insufficient support for teachers. By the time they reach upper secondary age, systemic and social barriers such as bullying, low expectations, weak policy support, poverty and data gaps result in 35% of youth with disabilities being out of school.

In turn, the skills gaps resulting from early school leaving become one of the key bottlenecks preventing persons with disabilities from transitioning into the labor market. In OECD countries, about 30% of young people with disabilities and 70% of those with severe disabilities are not employed, not in education and not in training (NEET). In some areas the NEET rate is up to five times higher than for........

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