Access Beyond Admission: A Lived Experience Analysis of Physical Accessibility in Higher Education

AI disclosure 

AI was used to assist with proofreading, grammar correction, improving clarity, and organizing the structure of the manuscript. The lived experiences, analysis, arguments, and policy recommendations are my own original work.

Abstract 

This lived experience analysis examines how physical inaccessibility continues to limit meaningful participation in higher education for students with disabilities in Nigeria, despite gaining university admission. Drawing on my experiences as a university student with a mobility disability, this article argues that admission alone does not ensure equal access, inclusion, or educational success. Instead, it shows how inaccessible campus infrastructure, inadequate institutional support, and limited awareness of disability rights create barriers to independence and academic participation. By connecting these experiences to broader disability policy, the analysis highlights the gap between policy commitments and students' everyday realities. It concludes that achieving inclusive higher education requires universities to move beyond admission by embedding accessibility into campus planning, student services, and institutional decision-making. It calls for stronger implementation of disability policies, accessible campus infrastructure, and effective disability support systems that enable students with disabilities to participate fully, learn with dignity, and succeed on an equal basis with others.

Introduction 

Higher education plays an important role in creating opportunities for personal development, employment, leadership, and social participation. For many students, gaining admission into a university represents a major milestone and the beginning of new possibilities. However, for students with disabilities, admission alone does not guarantee equal access, inclusion, or the ability to fully participate in academic life. The journey does not end when a student receives an admission letter; it continues through the daily experience of navigating campuses, classrooms, learning spaces, and institutional systems that may not have been designed with disabled students in mind.

In Nigeria, comprehensive national data on the annual admission of students with disabilities into tertiary institutions remains limited. However, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) reported that its Equal Opportunity Group facilitated the admission of 4,216 candidates with disabilities over a 10-year period, averaging approximately 422 candidates per year. The programme also reported that about 53% of participating candidates with disabilities successfully secured admission each year (Okebukola, 2026). While these efforts represent progress, they also highlight the continued underrepresentation of persons with disabilities in higher education and the need to examine the barriers that exist before, during, and after admission.

My name is Hassan Mu’azu Aliyu. I am a Nigerian university student and a disability and accessibility advocate living with a mobility impairment. Through my experiences navigating higher education, as well as my advocacy work on educational access for children and students with disabilities, I have witnessed how physical environments and institutional practices can shape whether disabled students are able to participate fully or not.

My Journey Beyond Admission

Gaining admission to a university is a life-changing dream that many young people hope to achieve. When I received admission to a university near my community, I was only half happy because I could not study at the university of my choice. The university I wanted to attend was not too far from my community, but my parents were worried that I would not be able to cope with its inaccessible environment. They also could not afford the additional support I would need, such as hiring a caregiver.

From my perspective, studying outside my community would have given me the opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. I believed that these experiences would broaden my knowledge and strengthen my ability to raise awareness about accessibility, disability policy, and disability justice in my own community, where many people have limited knowledge of these issues. Looking back, this became the second major barrier in my educational journey, after the challenges I experienced during my secondary school years.

My family and I believed that attending the university closer to home would make it easier for me to study independently. However, my expectations quickly changed on my first day on campus during registration. I later discovered that my state, Jigawa, sponsors the tuition fees of students with disabilities studying in the state university (Jigawa State Scholarship Board, n.d.). However, most disabled people in my community, including myself, were unaware of this support. Only people already working within the system seemed to know about it. 

Although the university had no disability centre or office responsible for supporting or guiding students with disabilities, I went to the Registrar's Office for assistance. 

The registrar asked, "Have you paid your registration fees?" 

I replied, "No." 

He noticed my walking stick, looked at my legs, and then asked, "Are you disabled?" 

I answered, "Yes." 

He said, "Then why would you pay? You don't have to pay." 

I simply replied, "I didn't know, sir." 

What puzzled me most was that the university already had my admission records, medical reports, and documents confirming my disability, yet no one informed me that I was entitled to this support. If someone like me, coming from an underrepresented community with limited access to information, was never told about my rights, how was I expected to know they existed?

After registration, I faced another reality: the physical environment of the university and the hostel. During my first stay in the school hostel, I was the only disabled student living there. Although the university's accommodation policy gave first priority to students with disabilities, this existed only on paper. In reality, nothing about the hostel environment was accessible. The entire hostel depended on one old, broken borehole for water. It was located far from our rooms, the kitchen, and the bathrooms. Fetching water required physical strength that I did not have. Sometimes, other students offered to help me out of pity. Others simply ignored my struggles. I tried as much as I could not to depend on anyone's sympathy because I did not want pity. What I needed was not charity or kindness. I needed an accessible environment that allowed me to live independently.

The greatest physical barrier I faced on campus was the stairs. Every day, I often walked one to two kilometres across the campus before reaching my lecture halls. By the time I arrived, I was already exhausted. To enter many classrooms, I had to crawl up the stairs because there were no accessible alternatives. This physical exhaustion affected my ability to participate fully in academic activities. On several occasions, I missed important lectures simply because reaching the classroom had become another obstacle to overcome.

Why These Barriers Are Policy Failures

My experiences at university reveal that the barriers disabled students face are not simply individual challenges.  They are the result of poor implementation of policies such as the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act (2018) and the National Policy on Inclusive Education, as well as inaccessible environments and long-standing misconceptions about disability.  These barriers exist because many people still view disability through the lens of limitation rather than rights, equality, and inclusion. Many of these barriers are rooted in discrimination, misconceptions about disability, and, at times, selfishness. Accessibility is created by people. It does not always require expensive infrastructure or complex technology. In many cases, simple and thoughtful planning can make a significant difference. However, many people only consider accessibility when disability affects them personally, their family, or someone close to them.

I remember an experience from my childhood that has stayed with me. There was a man in my community who treated me badly because of my disability. He often mocked me by saying, "Why can't you run, boy?" He would pretend to run in front of me and then ask, "Why can't you jump?" before jumping himself. Sometimes he would even say that he would give me money if I could run with him and beat him in a race. He knew very well that, at that time, I could not even stand on my feet independently. More than ten years later, after I had finished secondary school and entered university, I met the same man again. This time, he complained that people were saying similar things about his own child, who has a mobility impairment like mine. They kept asking him, "When is your child going to walk?"

At that moment, I realised something important. Years earlier, he had openly expressed the same misconceptions about disability that were now hurting his own family. His attitude reflected a wider problem within our society. Many people ignore disability until it becomes part of their own lives. They are concerned only when they or someone close to them experiences disability, while ignoring the discrimination faced by others.

These attitudes contribute to disability injustice and exclusion in our communities. They also influence the decisions made by institutions. Accessibility does not appear on its own. Communities, universities, and other institutions are designed and managed by people. If a university provides accessible facilities, it is because people intentionally planned and implemented them. Likewise, when accessibility is absent, it reflects decisions made by people who failed to consider disabled people during planning and implementation. My experience at university demonstrates this reality. Universities often fail to consider disabled students when planning, constructing, or maintaining their campuses. Accessibility is frequently treated as an afterthought rather than a fundamental part of educational planning. Yet accessibility is not a privilege or a favour. It is a right and an essential part of achieving equity in education.

The absence of accessible infrastructure also reveals broader weaknesses in inclusive education. In many Nigerian universities, there are no disability centres, dedicated offices, or support programmes responsible for guiding and supporting students with disabilities. Without these structures, many students are left to navigate inaccessible environments and institutional processes on their own. These experiences show that the barriers disabled students encounter are not isolated inconveniences. They are symptoms of broader policy failures. When accessibility standards are not considered during planning, when disability support services are absent, and when misconceptions continue to shape institutional decisions, disabled students are excluded from fully participating in higher education.

Policy Recommendations

The barriers described in this analysis are not inevitable. They result from decisions made by governments, universities, and those responsible for designing educational environments. Addressing these barriers requires coordinated action to ensure that accessibility is treated as a fundamental right rather than an afterthought.

Government

1. Strengthen the enforcement of accessibility laws by ensuring thorough implementation, monitoring, and consultation on institutional policies and systems.

2. Integrate accessibility into education funding and oversight, ensuring that accessibility requirements are implemented in practice, not merely documented in policy.

Universities

1. Conduct regular accessibility audits to identify and remove physical and institutional barriers across campuses.

2. Consult students with disabilities before making decisions about campus infrastructure, facilities, and services.

3. Prioritize accessible classrooms, libraries, hostels, walkways, and transport routes to enable equal participation for all students.

4. Establish disability support offices with clear responsibilities and authority to coordinate disability services and respond to students' needs.

5. Organize disability awareness programmes, seminars, and workshops for university staff, lecturers, and students to promote understanding of disability rights, accessibility, and inclusive education.

Architects and Campus Planners

1. Apply universal design principles from the earliest stages of planning and construction to ensure that campuses are accessible to everyone.

2. Avoid treating accessibility as an afterthought by incorporating inclusive design into all new buildings and infrastructure projects rather than relying on costly retrofitting after construction.

Conclusion

Admission is not the same as inclusion. When a disabled person is admitted to a university, the admission letter does not replace the rights, accessibility, and inclusion they need to succeed. Accessibility is a right, not a privilege. Universities must create inclusive environments where every student has an equal opportunity to learn, participate, and thrive. True inclusion begins not when a student receives an admission letter, but when every part of the campus enables that student to participate independently in university life. Only then can admission truly become access.

References 

Federal Ministry of Education. (2016). National Policy on Inclusive Education in Nigeria. https://education.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/INCLUSIVE-EDUCATION-POLICY.pdf

Federal Republic of Nigeria. (2018). Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2019/11/Nigeria_Discrimination-Against-Persons-with-Disabilities-Prohibition-Act-2018.pdf

Jigawa State Scholarship Board. (n.d.). Free Education for Persons with Disabilities.

https://jssb.ng/

Okebukola, P. (2026). Address at the JAMB National Stakeholder Engagement on Inclusivity and Higher Education. Reported by independent Newspapers. https://independent.ng/over-4216-candidates-with-disabilities-gained-admission-into-tertiary-institutions-in-ten-years-okebukola/

About the author

Hassan Mu'azu Aliyu (he/him) is a Nigerian university student and disability and accessibility advocate with lived experience of mobility impairment. His advocacy focuses on inclusive education, disability rights, and digital accessibility.

Social media profile

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hassan-aliyu-622875383/