Mackenzie Ishmael Chibambo, Joseph Jinja Divala & Lemeez Fick have produced a paper “illustrating how the proponents of colonialism and apartheid had used education to enforce racial and class dominance through manipulation of the curriculum, educators, and all policies that guided socio-economic life. There these very historical inequalities that continue to influence present day social, economic, educational and political conditions of many countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. This study therefore sought to explain and understand how colonial-era-like policies have continued to shape socioeconomic and educational conditions of modern African countries and how these policies and practices have recreated and sustained power-relations and inequalities among the peoples”.

Front. Educ., 11 February 2026

Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity

Volume 11 – 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1745790

Paula Sergeant and Doris Hanappi also describe – through their LEARN project – how educational inequalities persist despite expanding access:

“The paradox of progress: Expanding access, persistent Inequalities

The 20th century saw a large-scale increase in accessibility to educational opportunities in Europe, firstly with the expansion of primary and secondary education and compulsory schooling ages, to more recent improvements in access to tertiary education and the expansion of early childhood education and care (ECEC).

Yet despite the marked expansion of education systems and the resultant major increase in the average educational attainment of country populations, the association between social backgrounds and educational inequalities has remained remarkably stable, even as other inequalities, such as the lower educational attainment of women versus men, have been mitigated.

Inequalities in educational achievement, aspirations, decisions, and choice of fields remain pronounced along socio-economic, gender and ethnic lines, along with intersections of these characteristics, yet even as barriers to progressing in education have been lowered, inequalities in years in education and differential access to higher education reflect continued quantitative and qualitative inequalities of social origin.”