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 RuleUS public
WCAG 2.1 AA required for state/local government, including public schools and colleges. Phased deadlines through 2026/2027.
- Section 504 and 508US federally funded
Applies to nearly every accredited US institution.
- EAA + Web Accessibility DirectiveEU
Public-sector education sites must comply.
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 tagged1.1.1, 1.3.1
Lecture slides and syllabi exported as image PDFs.
- LMS quizzes without keyboard support2.1.1
Drag-and-drop matching exercises with no keyboard alternative.
- Pre-recorded lectures without captions1.2.2
1.2.2 violation; deaf students cannot access the curriculum.
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
Run a free Certvo scan against your homepage and one task-flow URL (login, checkout, booking). It pinpoints which of the issues above apply to you, and how often.
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.