Digital inequalities and the COVID legacy in higher education in the global South and North: intersecting inaccessibilities and institutional assumptions

This paper discusses digital inequalities in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on home study conditions and digital literacies. It aims to offer a distinctive contribution by focusing on socio-digital inequalities relating to students’ experiences. It draws on a larger international review and understanding of fair access, digital geographies and intersecting inequalities. We outline the historical and spatial injustices facing the global South and argue that research frequently sees digital access solely as technological barriers or student skill deficits. We show how digital access and digital literacies were profoundly shaped by home contexts, institutional assumptions and wider social and geospatial factors, and how marginalised students experienced multiple inaccessibilities, especially in the global South. The legacy of COVID should be to address the wider inequalities associated to online and remote learning at national and international levels, and for institutions to interrogate the role of institutional assumptions in reinforcing digital inequalities.