The Great Digital Divide

Monica Crouch, Independent Education

Inequities in internet access existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but its onslaught has only exacerbated the gap. Monica Crouch talks to the people trying to close it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed fault lines. More people from lower-income brackets contracted the virus as they couldn’t work from home; and more women lost their jobs than men. Around the world, school closures and the shift to online learning lifted the curtain on the haves and have-nots of digital access.

Monica Crouch follows the story of inequities in digital connectivity, capacity and devices and hardware in Western Sydney in conversation with Jane Stratton, CEO, Think+DO Tank Foundation and Claire Thomas, Manager of School and Community Engagement for Jesuit Social Services in NSW. Both organisations are founding members of Wester’ly, a coalition of community organisations advocating for investment and action to address digital exclusion and educational disadvantage in Greater Western Sydney.