Covid-19 has closed campuses across the world, and forces students to adjust to higher education, learning and examinations in a new way. This adjustment accentuates socio-economic divides as well as urban-rural ones. While higher education in the past decades has become more accepting of people from different socio-economic backgrounds, the pandemic can compromise accessibility.

The rapid digitalization of higher education and transition to online learning platforms has had mixed results and universities are to varying degrees equipped to cope with this transition. This can create further differences in the quality of education, and who are able to access higher education.

Redistributions in national budgets and students as essential workers emphasizes the differences between those who can afford to keep up with education and those who cannot.

In this seminar we want to have an open conversation on these issues:

How can we ensure equal access to quality higher education in this new normal?

How can student unions ensure that students are heard in the coming months and years of budget cuts?

What can we learn from this experience in our work as student activists, what are smart moves ahead?

If possible, we will have panelists from NSO and a student organization in the global south to discuss this issues, as well as open up for a conversation with the participants in the webinar.