Accessibility requirements for Education websites

Regulations that apply

Education sits at the intersection of general digital-accessibility law and sector-specific obligations. The most relevant items to track:

• DOJ Title II Final Rule

  WCAG 2.1 AA required for state/local government, including public schools and colleges. Phased deadlines through 2026/2027.

  US public

• Section 504 and 508

  Applies to nearly every accredited US institution.

  US federally funded

• EAA + Web Accessibility Directive

  Public-sector education sites must comply.

  EU

The accessibility risks specific to Education

Every industry has its own failure pattern. The combination below is what audits, complaints, and lawsuits in this sector keep returning to. Fixing them clears the most-cited issues without touching every page.

• PDF course materials that are not tagged

  Lecture slides and syllabi exported as image PDFs.

  1.1.1, 1.3.1

• LMS quizzes without keyboard support

  Drag-and-drop matching exercises with no keyboard alternative.

  2.1.1

• Pre-recorded lectures without captions

  1.2.2 violation; deaf students cannot access the curriculum.

  1.2.2

A short remediation checklist

Most Education teams do not need a 200-item audit before they fix anything. They need an ordered list of the highest-impact moves. Start with these and re-audit after each pass.

• Audit LMS templates and quiz types

• Caption every recorded lecture

• Re-export PDFs as accessible

Scoping an audit for Education

Education carries 3 distinct obligations to satisfy — DOJ Title II Final Rule, Section 504 and 508, EAA + Web Accessibility Directive — spanning US public and US federally funded and EU. An auditor prices the work by how many of those regimes are in scope and how many distinct task flows carry them, not by page count.

The 3 failure patterns above map to 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 2.1.1, 1.2.2. Every one of those is machine-detectable, which means a scan can clear them before an auditor starts charging by the hour. What remains for manual review is the judgement work: whether pdf course materials that are not tagged actually functions end to end for a screen-reader user.

• Scan first, audit second

  Clearing the 3 automated patterns above shortens the manual pass to the flows that need a person.

• Scope by template, not by page

  A site with thousands of pages usually has fewer than twenty distinct templates. Price the templates.

• Re-test after remediation

  The conformance claim rests on the re-test, not the first report.

• Evidence for US public

  Keep dated scan history — it is what turns a conformance claim into something a regulator accepts.