The paper investigated personal and institutional constraints to accessing tertiary education among people living with disability in Bayelsa State. Two research questions and two corresponding null hypotheses were answered and tested in the study. Mixed method design was adopted in the study while 165 respondents consisting of 160 persons with disability, four Deans of Student Affairs and an executive of Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) in Bayelsa State were sampled for the study using multistage sampling technique. The respondents were drawn from within and outside four randomly selected tertiary institutions namely; Bayelsa Medical University (Yenagoa LGA), Fderal University Otuoke (Ogbia LGA), Niger Delta University (Southern Ijaw LGA) and Isaac Jasper Boro College of Education (Sagbama LGA). Instruments used for collection of data were questionnaire for the persons with disability as well as Focus Group Discussion while five Key Informant Interviews (KIIs)was conducted with the other respondents. Data gathered quantitatively were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation and t-test while the qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings of the study indicated that poverty and fear of discrimination were the major personal factors that hindered access to tertiary education for the respondents while the major institutional factors were shortage of experts in special needs education and shortage of infrastructure. There existed a difference in the opinion of the students and non-students on these personal and institutional factors. It was recommended that laws should be enacted that will criminalize and punish the violation of the educational rights of people with disability while special fund should be established to take care of their educational needs.
Keywords: Bayelsa State, Institutional, Personal, disability, tertiary education
