Information and communication technologies and the COVID-19: from economic inequality to educational digital divide in central and South America

Abstract

During the pandemic, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education gained significance due to the closure of educational institutions. Therefore, the gap in educational performance between students with access to ICT and those without access to them may have widened. This paper analyzes whether the educational digital divide caused by access to ICT has increased in eight countries in Central and South America. Propensity Score Matching is employed to estimate the effect of access to ICT on educational performance considering students’ socioeconomic background, eliminating the effect of other pre-existing inequalities using data from PISA (2018 and 2022 editions). The results indicate that the educational digital divide generated by unequal access to ICT has widened during the pandemic. However, outcomes vary depending on the country and the assessed competence. These findings underline the need to keep debating the impact of unequal access to ICT on educational systems, especially in developing countries