Higher education policy and research tend to be dominated by the messaging systems of the North. De Sousa Santos argues that we need to start listening to the South and that we need to develop a sociology of absences. This paper attempts to engage with some of these absences by deconstructing participation in higher education, in quantitative and qualitative terms, in Ghana and Tanzania. The paper is based on interim findings from a research project on Economic and Social Research Council/Department for International Development-funded research project on Widening Participation in Higher Education in Ghana and Tanzania: Developing an Equity Scorecard (www.sussex.ac.uk/education/wideningparticipation). It argues that, while globally the higher education sector has become associated with economic development and the hyper modernisation of the knowledge economy, some archaic patterns of participation appear to be continuing. (Contains 4 tables.)