Section outline


  • Inequity is everywhere in higher education, between countries, between regions and social and economic groups within countries. These graphs demonstrate some of the issues.

    Starting with a world view:


    Share of the population enrolled in tertiary education, 2023. From Global Education.

    Although the main focus of this course relates to university level knowledge, of course access to tertiary education depends on having completed secondary education, and this graph, also from Global Education reminds us that there is global variation in getting any education at all


    Now income disparities between and within global regions:


    Disparities according to wealth, within and between global regions. From Buckner & Abdelaziz 2023

    Now the urban/rural divide within countries:
    We see social, economic and regional differences within most countries. Here are some data on the urban/rural divide from Australia:

    From: Parliament of Australia: Regional and remote higher education: a quick guide

    You might like to explore other data that describe and explore regional variations in access to higher education where rates are invariably higher in cities than in regional and remote areas - from the UK, Australia, France, Norway, China, and Africa.

    It has been reported that in Australia, somewhere between 8% and 10% of Indigenous people have a university degree, compared with 32% of the broader Australia population.

    The reasons for each of these inequities are complex, and cannot be dissociated from access to primary and secondary education. However, our focus here is on tertiary, university education.

    We will be covering the theory of how distributing both the learning and the creation of knowledge can help reduce knowledge inequity, and also want to provide practical skills for those who access the course. We hope that you will become practitioners of, and advocates for, this approach to higher education.
    • Reflection on why this course matters Forum
      Students must
      Make forum posts: 1

      Please reflect on the relevance of examples given here on inequity in access to higher education and add any examples you can offer.