Statutory Promise and Classroom Reality: A PRISMA Guided Systematic Review of the Legal Framework for Inclusive Education of Children with Disabilities in India

Abstract

India guarantees every child with a disability free and inclusive education through a statutory framework that is, on paper, among the most detailed anywhere. Classroom reality tells a different story, and this review asks why. Following the PRISMA 2020 statement, authors systematically reviewed peer reviewed scholarship published between 2006 and 2025 on the legal and policy dimensions of inclusive education for children with disabilities in India, read against Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and against comparative statutory models from five other jurisdictions. Four themes emerged from the synthesis. First, inclusion entered Indian policy as an imported concept and was reinterpreted in ways that frequently reduced it to physical placement in a mainstream classroom. Second, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016 preserves a dual track of special and mainstream schooling without resolving the tension between the two, an ambivalence the international literature suggests is not unique to India but is unusually consequential there. Third, teacher preparation remains the fulcrum on which every statutory promise turns, and the evidence on preparation, attitudes and support is sobering. Fourth, and most significant for lawyers, the Indian framework creates rights without matching remedies. There is no enforceable individual education plan, no time bound grievance procedure, and only thin monitoring by Commissioners whose powers are recommendatory. A comparative analysis of six legal frameworks indicates that jurisdictions with stronger classroom delivery pair substantive entitlements with procedural enforcement. Authors conclude that the next stage of Indian reform needs to be procedural rather than declaratory.