Accessibility Planning for Higher Education Campuses in India: A Contextual Approach to Universal Design

Accessibility in higher education campuses of India paves way for inclusion.This paper shares perspectives from three diverse campuses from India and highlights the accessibility paradigms in their respective contexts. It further elaborates the contextual measures of accessibility and universal design from these examples with larger focus on physical attributes of accessibility. Challenges of historic and mixed use campus alongwith high ecological footprint pose distinct perspectives to accessible built environments in higher education. Comparative understanding of accessibility through structured metrics and mapping with Universal Design goals leads to development of a framework to assess and guide universal design approach in higher education in similar contexts. It argues that Universal design approach requires a contextual interpretation for contexts like these and may reflect new interpretations to existing theories. New Education Policy by the Government of India and Covid'19 as pandemic have furthered the need and understanding of accessibility in higher education with some degree of universaliaton and some degree of contextualization.