Online Education Poverty: A Multidimensional Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted universities to shift to emergency remote teaching. This shift foregrounded previously underappreciated dimensions of poverty. Poverty is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon. When considering the needs of university students, conceptions and measures of poverty should include the lack of the resources required to access online education. This research seeks to create a multidimensional poverty index, that can be used to assess the poverty of students with respect to online education. This index will be useful when planning interventions that can assist students. The index is created by combining the well-known Alkire-Foster method with concepts emanating from the digital divide, energy poverty and educational technology. The work will focus on students at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.