Modern institutions are rife with tech that disenfranchises, dehumanises, excludes and even bullies students and teachers. It’s high time for a rethink

Andy Farrell:

I was recently asked: “Which digital technologies could we get rid of in higher education?”

Some immediately spring to mind, such as the scourge of CCTV cameras and badge access systems, which are turning places of learning into high-security gulags. Or, at the behest of government bureaucrats, our draconian monitoring of student attendance like preschool infants. But these technologies, unwelcome and unnecessary as they are, do not capture the problem – which is that of equity.

Every part of an equitable university is accountable and responsive to its core stakeholders – students and teachers; those without whom the entire institution makes no sense. Within their activities each must be able to teach and learn as a fully human participant, to be genuinely heard, held in mind, have choice, agency, autonomy and equality of opportunity.