The proportion of illiterates among the disabled population is decreasing year after year but 45.5% among them still cannot read or write.
The Census 2011 figures on the education level of disabled, released on Friday, also showed that higher education opportunities for them has not improved drastically.
Of the 2.68 crore disabled population, 1.46 crore (54.5%) are literates while 1.22 crore are illiterates. When it comes to disabled women, the rate of illiteracy is much higher at 55.4% compared to 37.6% of men.
Among the illiterates, visually challenged topped the list with 23.77 lakh followed by hearing impaired at 21.84 lakh. Though there is improvement in the numbers of disabled getting more opportunities for higher education, it is not a great leap.
Only 8.5% among literate disabled managed to get a degree, as per Census 2011.
However, the figure for 2001 was 6%.
While 9% of the literate disabled men got degrees or above, the figure for women was 7.7%. In 2001, it was 6.6% and 4.6% respectively.
Of the 2.68 crore disabled, only 12.46 lakh had completed degree or have qualifications beyond that, indicating that there is a long way for the country to go on getting more disabled people to higher education.
While 19.4% of the literate disabled population have education up to the primary level, 24.3% have qualification below the middle-school level.
As many as 24.9% disabled men are matric or secondary but below graduate while 21.2% females are matric or secondary but below graduate.
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