By: Alejandro Vera, Ernesto Yáñez and Martín Scasso, UNESCO Regional Office in Santiago For people with disabilities, inclusion means more than just access to education. It encompasses the right to be educated in mainstream schools under equal conditions with reasonable accommodation, the necessary support, and without discrimination. Achieving inclusive education requires understanding who accesses school, […] The post From statistical invisibility to evidence: The state of inclusive education in Latin America appeared first on World Education Blog.
By: Alejandro Vera, Ernesto Yáñez and Martín Scasso, UNESCO Regional Office in Santiago
For people with disabilities, inclusion means more than just access to education. It encompasses the right to be educated in mainstream schools under equal conditions with reasonable accommodation, the necessary support, and without discrimination. Achieving inclusive education requires understanding who accesses school, who does not, and the nature of their educational trajectories.
In recent years, Latin American countries have implemented various policies and programs to strengthen the educational inclusion of people with disabilities. However, little is known about the actual outcomes of these initiatives. The 2020 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, Inclusion and education: All means all, noted that despite normative and programmatic advances, a structural gap persists between policy initiatives and the evidence regarding their results. This lack of information limits the capacity of States to evaluate policies, allocate resources, and ensure accountability mechanisms.
Against this backdrop, the Regional Education Information System on Students with Disabilities (SIRIED) emerged as an initiative led by UNESCO Santiago, in collaboration with Spain’s Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports (MEFPD) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID). Working within the framework of the Ibero-American Intergovernmental Network for Cooperation in the Education of People with Special Educational Needs (RIINEE), SIRIED aims to address these data gaps by transforming heterogeneous administrative records into a set of regionally comparable indicators.
The report “Towards barrier-free education: Advances and challenges in inclusive education evidenced by the SIRIED 2024 results” provides an updated diagnosis of the educational situation of the population with disabilities in Latin America, based on data from 16 of the 19 RIINEE member countries. This constitutes an unprecedented milestone for the region, as it is the first study based on such a significant number of countries. Beyond describing the current state of affairs, it places the gaps faced by this population in terms of access, retention, and completion at the center of the debate.
From statistical invisibility to evidence: Key findings
Nearly 2.3 million students with disabilities are registered in the education systems of the participating countries, representing approximately 2.5% of the total enrollment in pre-primary, primary, and secondary levels. This figure demonstrates that the educational inclusion of people with disabilities is not a marginal issue; rather, it demands inclusive planning processes, sustained resources, and long-term policies.
Source: Based on data from the report “Towards Education Without Barriers: Progress and Challenges in Inclusive Education as Evidenced by the 2024 SIRIED Results”.
However, access remains uneven across levels. The report indicates that people with disabilities have lower rates of access to the education system. This situation is particularly concentrated among those of pre-primary and secondary school age. In early childhood, there are 18 students with disabilities for every 1,000 enrolled students. This proportion rises until age 12 (33 per 1,000) before declining. This evidence reinforces the fact that entry into the education system is not homogeneous and that there are critical points where the risk of exclusion is higher.
A large proportion of these students access the education system through mainstream schools. It is estimated that, on average, 81% of all enrolled students with disabilities attend mainstream schools, totaling around 2 million children and youth.
Public education plays a central role in advancing inclusion. In primary education, for example, 82% of students with disabilities in public schools are in mainstream education, while 18% are in special education schools. In contrast, in private schools, there is a higher probability that students with disabilities will attend special education schools, with participation rates at 56% and 44% respectively.
Source: Based on data from the report “Towards Education Without Barriers: Progress and Challenges in Inclusive Education as Evidenced by the 2024 SIRIED Results”.
Discontinuous trajectories and points of exclusion
The report shows discontinuous and vulnerable educational trajectories, a condition that worsens as students’ progress through school. This situation is reflected in over-age enrollment and dropout rates.
Approximately 14% of students with disabilities do not enroll in the following school year, evidencing a high level of year-to-year dropout. This affects both mainstream and special education, though variations exist between countries.
The dropout rate by educational level shows a pattern of progressive exclusion:
- Primary: 6.7%
- Lower secondary: 13.5%
- Upper secondary: 36.8% (one in three students)
This identifies upper secondary education as a breaking point for the educational trajectories of students with disabilities.
Source: Based on data from the report “Towards Education Without Barriers: Progress and Challenges in Inclusive Education as Evidenced by the 2024 SIRIED Results”.
While the majority of students with disabilities are enrolled in mainstream education, special education still plays a relevant role, and the data suggests mobility between modalities over time. The evidence indicates that these changes in modality are often part of discontinuous trajectories and may coincide with increases in over-age enrollment and dropout.
Access is a necessary but insufficient condition for guaranteeing the right to education; it is also essential that students complete their studies successfully. Although there are improvements in educational attainment, the degree of exclusion remains wide, and gaps compared to peers without disabilities are a structural constant.
The report notes that the proportion of people without disabilities who completed primary education is 29 percentage points higher than those with disabilities. In lower and upper secondary, this gap reaches 34 and 33 percentage points, respectively.
Over-age enrollment is prevalent among students with disabilities, who frequently attend grades below their age level. While over-age enrollment can sometimes reflect non-linear trajectories intended to favor inclusion, its magnitude reveals the presence of barriers such as repeated grade failure, temporary withdrawal, and late entry.
Source: Based on data from the report “Towards Education Without Barriers: Progress and Challenges in Inclusive Education as Evidenced by the 2024 SIRIED Results”.
A significant gender gap persists, disproportionately affecting females with disabilities. Throughout the study, indicators show they experience lower promotion rates and higher rates of repetition and over-age enrollment, particularly in primary education.
From regional evidence to informed action
The information presented by SIRIED aligns with global trends. The 2026 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report: Access and Equity. Countdown to 2030 shows progress in inclusive education policies, reflected in the approval of inclusive regulatory frameworks, a greater commitment to the schooling of students with disabilities[1], and the recognition that inclusive environments help more students with disabilities enroll in and complete their education.
The findings from SIRIED show that advancing inclusion requires going beyond mere access and placing educational trajectories at the heart of the analysis. Although the educational inclusion of students with disabilities has improved, it remains marked by structural fragilities expressed through over-age enrollment, dropout rates, and persistent gaps in school completion.
The persistence of discontinuous and vulnerable educational trajectories highlights that progress in inclusion requires comparable information systems for evaluation. The 2026 GEM Report warns that, despite advances in measuring disability, data remains limited and does not allow for a robust description of how educational trajectories evolve (GEM Report 2026, p. 26). In this context, SIRIED represents a strategic breakthrough by enabling more robust monitoring of the educational trajectories of students with disabilities and providing comparable evidence for policy design and monitoring.
To learn more about the results of SIRIED 2024, you can access the full report here (in Spanish).
[1] Latin America and the Caribbean is the region where the fewest countries have an official definition of inclusive education (67%, compared to a global average of 84%). At the same time, it is the region where the most countries have laws establishing a segregated educational framework for people with disabilities (21%), well above the global average (9%).
The post From statistical invisibility to evidence: The state of inclusive education in Latin America appeared first on World Education Blog.
