In addition to changes in funding, the introduction of centralised control, and shifts in the power and authority of academic staff, universities have undergone significant organisational transformation. Increasingly operating within a business-driven system, Higher Education institutions are subject to expanding bureaucratic oversight and externally imposed performance metrics. This intensifying climate of accountability reflects the deepening influence of neoliberal ideologies within the sector, shaping not only institutional governance but also pedagogical practice.

Amid these structural pressures, the student experience remains central—particularly within independent distance learning teacher training programmes at a North Eastern University. With over 65 nationalities represented, this PGCE Education programme exemplifies a commitment to student-centred support, even as academic staff navigate growing administrative burdens. Despite these tensions, the personal academic tutoring system foregrounds care, relationality, and responsiveness to the diverse needs of trainee teachers.

Building on research conducted in 2016 and 2022, the present study explores how digital infrastructures and academic support systems co-construct the experiences of both students and staff. Drawing on Posthumanist thought—particularly Braidotti’s (2013) notion of the nomadic subject, Barad’s (2007) theory of intra-action, and Haraway’s (1991) cyborg ontology—the study rethinks the nature of academic support beyond anthropocentric and dualistic models. It interrogates how humans and non-humans—digital platforms, learning management systems, algorithmic feedback, policy documents, and affective labour—are entangled in the production of educational experience.

From this perspective, the student–staff relationship emerges as a relational assemblage, where agency is distributed and co-constituted through material-discursive practices. “Distance” is no longer a deficit to be overcome but a productive space for reimagining pedagogical connectivity—aligned with the programme’s motto: distance, not distant. This posthuman reframing offers new possibilities for understanding how care, accountability, and transnational learning unfold in the digital university, resonating with the aims of the International Education Strategy (2021) while critically resisting the depersonalising effects of metric-driven governance.

Keywords: Education, Posthumanism, Student Support.