This blog was written by Sakina Jafri, doctoral student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. It focuses on the recent UKFIET event held on 4 February 2026: Leaving No Learner Behind: Disability-Inclusive Education and the Post-2030 Agenda.
Jafri argues: “For learners with disabilities, exclusion is rarely accidental. It reflects how power operates through policy design, financing, data systems and school cultures that privilege normative assumptions about ability. Power shapes whose knowledge counts, often elevating technical expertise over lived experience and allowing external actors to drive reform. In this context, global commitments risk remaining rhetorical unless resources, authority and voice are redistributed. The question is no longer whether inclusion matters, but how power can be exercised differently.”