From rural TN to IIT-B: Disabled girl to study aerospace engineering

When 17-year-old Yogeshwari Selvam from rural Tamil Nadu secured a seat in Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay, it was a revolutionary moment for India’s public education system.

A disabled girl from a Tamil-medium government school, with no access to private coaching, cracking one of the country’s toughest entrance exams in her first attempt?

In a landscape where structural disadvantage is often treated as personal failure, Yogeshwari’s story is one of what’s possible not when you “defy the odds,” but when the system starts to work.

A spark in a small village

Yogeshwari hails from Padanthal village in Virudhunagar district. Her father works in a tea stall, and her mother is employed in a fireworks factory, both part of Tamil Nadu’s working-class backbone that quietly sustains the state’s economy.

Education was always a priority in the Selvam household. Her two older brothers made it through college, and Yogeshwari was determined to follow but with a dream that seemed impossibly distant: to study aerospace engineering.

The spark came early.

“I developed an interest in space during Class 7,” she says. “I didn’t even know what aerospace engineering meant exactly but I knew I wanted to study it.”

It wasn’t until Class 12 that she even heard of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), the national-level entrance test required to enter the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

“I got to know about JEE through the Kalloori Kanavu program,” she says, referring to a career awareness initiative under the Tamil Nadu government’s Naan Mudhalvan scheme, which introduces government school students to competitive exams, college streams, and career options.

For Yogeshwari, it was a turning point.

State support and 40 days of opportunity

She was among the 230 students from government schools selected for specialised crash coaching funded by the Virudhunagar District Collector’s office. The classes were held in Erode, over a 40-day period after her plus-two exams. Until then, Yogeshwari had studied in Tamil medium and had never attended English-language instruction.

“The training was in English. It was difficult in the beginning,” she admits. “But I picked it up little by little  just by staying focused.”

She secured the 75th rank under the Differently-Abled (OBC non-creamy layer) category in JEE (Advanced) and with it, a seat at IIT Bombay.

Representation, not resilience

Yogeshwari’s story is often framed as one of resilience. And it is.

But it is also about representation of government school students, disabled students, rural girls, and Tamil-medium learners in elite Indian institutions that have historically excluded them.

Yogeshwari credits District Collector VP Jeyaseelan for helping her realise this path was possible.

Through the Coffee with Collector initiative, she and other students had the rare chance to meet a government official who treated their dreams with seriousness. “The Collector told us the State would take care of our education,” she says. “That made my parents more confident.”

She also thanks Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin for launching schemes like Naan Mudhalvan, calling them a “boon for children from poor families.”

But her journey is also a reflection of how much invisible labour students like her must still do, navigating caste, class, disability, and language barriers just to be seen as deserving of the same shot at excellence.

Disability, not inability

It’s worth noting that Yogeshwari is disabled, though most media coverage around her barely addresses this beyond a category label.

In a system where disabled children are routinely segregated or written off, Yogeshwari’s admission into IIT is not a “miracle”. It’s a sign that when disabled students are included in mainstream education with proper support, they thrive.

Disability-inclusive coaching, accessible content, and sensitivity training are still missing from many such interventions, a gap that Tamil Nadu’s education policy must now begin to address if it wants more Yogeshwaris to succeed.

Looking to the skies

What lies ahead for Yogeshwari?

She speaks with confidence. “I want to work at ISRO one day,” she says.

“Sunita Williams and Kalpana Chawla are my role models. If they can do it, so can I.”

But she’s not chasing glory, she’s chasing possibility.

And in doing so, she’s also become one: for millions of young girls across India who are told their dreams are too big for their village, their gender, their disability, or their mother tongue.