The Silent Costs of Digital Transformation in Education: Redistribution of Responsibility and Digital Inequality

Digital transformation initiatives in education are increasingly framed as reforms intended to expand access, inclusion, and equity. Yet growing evidence suggests that such reforms can also reproduce inequality through the organisational and governance arrangements that shape their enactment in practice. Moving beyond access- and skills-based accounts of the digital divide, this study reconceptualises digital inequality as a governance-mediated and distributive process. Drawing on qualitative data from students, teachers, and school administrators, complemented by national policy document analysis in a middle-income country context, the study examines how responsibilities, risks, and adaptation demands are redistributed across actors during digital transformation. The findings show that digital reforms transfer hidden work and resource burdens to schools, educators, and disadvantaged families, producing differentiated organisational capacities and unequal educational experiences. The study introduces the concept of silent costs to theorise these unintended consequences and to explain how ostensibly inclusive digital initiatives generate new forms of technology-mediated inequality. By conceptualising digital transformation as a process of educational reform and policy enactment rather than a purely technical intervention, the article contributes to research on educational change, technology governance, and inequality, offering implications for more capacity-sensitive and equitable approaches to digital reform.