In 2003, the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation published a report entitled Disability in Higher Education. It revealed a lack of information and data on opportunities for young adults with disabilities to enter tertiary education and employment. This lack of information and data appeared to be a key barrier to developing cost-effective inclusion policies to prepare young adults with disabilities to meet the requirements of tertiary education institutions and the labour market and to empower them to be economically self-sufficient and socially independent.

This study has been carried out under the auspices of the OECD’s Education Policy Committee and the Group of National Experts on Special Needs Education and overseen by experts and representatives of the countries participating in the study. The country reports provided invaluable insights into their systems and the challenges faced by young people with disabilities and we would like to warmly thank all the country experts who contributed to this review.

Young adults with disabilities, and especially those with learning difficulties, have been going on to tertiary education in increasing numbers over the past decade. More are gaining the prerequisites for tertiary education as policies to promote the inclusion of disabled people developed over the past 20 years bear fruit.

Access to tertiary education is essential for young adults with disabilities: it boosts their chances of access to employment, their possibilities for inclusion and helps to put the prejudices surrounding impairment in the background. It can take on special meaning for young adults with disabilities in that the transition to adulthood changes the demands on educational systems and the conditions of eligibility for aid and support and creates new responsibilities for these individuals. In addition, the path to tertiary education requires the building of bridges and the creation of local synergies to mobilise actors in educational systems and in social and medical circles. Access to tertiary education also presupposes the existence of procedures for providing support to allow young adults with disabilities to cope with their new responsibilities and to adjust to the demands of tertiary education. In this respect it requires an integrated transition system that can ensure a safe pathway from secondary to tertiary education.

The inclusive policies developed in recent years have helped to optimise access to tertiary education for young adults with disabilities, particularly those with learning difficulties. They have facilitated their access to secondary education and their success at school by mobilising the financial, technical and human resources needed to meet their particular educational needs and by developing educational systems that seek to ensure the success of every student regardless of his or her particularities. However, access to tertiary education for young adults with disabilities is not as smooth as it is for other young adults, particularly for those with psychological or behavioural problems. These difficulties are attributable in particular to a lack of synergies between the actors involved in the process of transition to tertiary education, the lack of training of these actors, and the inadequacies of the tools and statistical data required for the development of integrated systems of transition.

The transition to tertiary education depends on secondary schools’ strategies to prepare young adults with disabilities to cope with the demands of tertiary education and on the admissions strategies of tertiary education institutions to facilitate their success. It is important in this respect for schools to support young adults with disabilities throughout the transition process by allowing them to choose their courses with full knowledge of the facts, by encouraging them to plan the various stages in the transition process and by preparing them to play an active role in their future. Furthermore, it is important for admissions strategies of tertiary education institutions to take steps to avoid the risk of failure and to incorporate support procedures into a contract focused on imparting skills to students with disabilities. The transition to tertiary education is predicated on rooting the admission and follow-up of students with disabilities in an inclusive ethos able to mobilise the entire university community around the diversity of educational profiles and the success of every student.

The growing number of young adults with disabilities in tertiary education has had only a relative impact in terms of entry into employment. Young adults with disabilities have less straightforward access to employment than the population as a whole, are overexposed to long-term unemployment and to casual or part-time jobs, and, as a result, to poverty. In this respect, their transition to employment requires the strengthening of links between schools and the job market as well as the development of synergies to combine success in tertiary education with successful entry into society and employment. It is important to facilitate the acquisition of professional experience in tertiary education, to make better provision for employment in the strategies of admissions and support services for students with disabilities and to strengthen the links between tertiary education institutions and the world of work.

Access to tertiary education for young adults with disabilities, particularly for those with learning difficulties, has improved significantly over the past decade in the countries participating in the project (the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Norway, Ireland, the United States). This reflects the growing number of young adults with disabilities with the prerequisites for tertiary education as a result of policies to promote the inclusion of disabled people developed over the past 20 years.

National authorities of participating countries are responsible for the preparation of a country report. Its purpose is to identify transition policies with respect to the situation of persons with disabilities or learning difficulties. All country reports used a common framework in order to facilitate comparative analysis and to maximise the opportunities for participating countries to share and learn from each other.