World Access to Higher Education Day Conference 2025

Date and Time: 28th October 2025 (Tuesday), 9:30 am - 5:00 pm (South Africa Time, SAST)

Location: Online & University of the Western Cape, Robert Sobukwe Road, Bellville, Cape Town, 7535, South Africa

Format: Hybrid

Admission: Free and open to all

Themed ‘Opportunity, Innovation and Lifelong Learning’, the hybrid, full-day World Access to Higher Education Day (WAHED) Conference 2025 will focus on how universities, governments and others can provide opportunities for those from all backgrounds to enter and succeed in higher education in new, innovative ways across their lives. The benefits of higher education participation for individuals and societies are clear, especially in low- and middle-income countries, but inequalities in who gains these benefits are stark. Transformative approaches are needed in how students are prepared for higher education, what universities deliver and when learners can benefit from higher education. Lifelong learning will be crucial – but what does that mean and how can it be delivered? Bringing together leaders from across the world and in South Africa, this event will elevate the access and success agenda, generating new knowledge, insights and collaboration.

🎓 Key themes

The conference will feature presentations and discussions on key themes, including:

• Policy approaches to higher education equity
• Financing equitable access and success in higher education
• Innovative practices and strategies supporting access and success
• Supporting successful outcomes for disadvantaged students
• Research and data on equitable access and success
• Supporting higher education access and success for refugees
• Higher education leadership and institutional strategies supporting access and success
• Lifelong learning and alternative pathways to higher education

🚀 Launch of WAHEN's latest report

The event will also mark the launch of the World Access to Higher Education Network’s latest report, ‘Drawing the Global Access Map 2’, a research initiative supported by the Lumina Foundation. The report brings together data from across the world on who participates in higher education by social background, providing fresh insight into the state of equitable access and success globally.

🎉Celebrate World Access to Higher Education Day (WAHED) together

This conference forms part of the global celebrations for World Access to Higher Education Day (WAHED) 2025, which returns on 28th October after a three-year hiatus. WAHED is a worldwide day of action that brings together individuals and organisations to raise awareness of inequalities in higher education access and success, and to drive change at international, regional, and local levels. From 2018 to 2022, more than 1,000 organisations across 100 countries participated in WAHED, attending and hosting events, conferences and initiatives to highlight and address these important issues.

To see what events are happening this year, find out how you and your organisation can hold your own event to mark WAHED 2025 and discover other ways to get involved, visit the WAHED webpage.

🌍 World Access to Higher Education Network (WAHEN)

WAHED is organised by the World Access to Higher Education Network (WAHEN), the global organisation to support equitable access and success in higher education launched in December 2024. WAHEN is based at Ruskin College, Oxford and led by a board of world-leading organisations, including the World Bank, UNESCO IESALC, the Asia-Europe Foundation, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley and many more.

This conference is hosted by the University of the Western Cape, and supported by The Saville Foundation and The Kresge Foundation. Our official media partner is University World News.