Vol. 5 No. 1 (2022): Special Issue - Equity Access to and Democratization of Higher Education

Higher education (HE) has seen astonishing growth around the world in recent decades. However, there are large asymmetries in access, with gross enrolment rates of 68% in Europe, 23% in South Asia and 9% in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, specific countries/regions are found to have marked inequalities of opportunity and many have set targets to increase the share of the population with HE and/or widen access to HE for individuals who are under-represented due to socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, disability or geographical origin. In parallel, the world has experienced a pandemic period that has redefined communication and learning practices and, in many cases, highlighted inequalities in access to higher education. This special issue of the Pratica eLearning Journal is motivated by the Love.Dist@ance project, but goes beyond it, bringing together contributions that aim to demonstrate practices, policies and strategies to promote accessibility, equity and democratisation of higher education.