An exploration of higher education teachers’ experience of decolonising the Bachelor of Education honours curriculum at a South African university

Preya Pillay,Eben Swanepoel

doi:10.18820/2519593x/pie.v36i2.10

Abstract

The ongoing 2015/16 student unrest (#RhodesMustFall; #FeesMustFall) has displayed heightened calls for the decolonising of the curriculum in the higher education (HE) sector. Students have highlighted in the recent protests that the curriculum remains largely Eurocentric and continues to reinforce white and Western dominance. In response to the need for a decolonised curriculum, higher education lecturers at a university in South Africa embarked on a Bachelor of Education honours writing exercise workshop with the purpose of decolonising the curriculum. This entailed rethinking ways of knowing and a deconstruction of old epistemologies, with the aim that transformation in the classroom would be reflected in what is taught and how it is taught, as a means to ripple through to grassroots classroom level. This study explores, through using Foucauldian discourse as theoretical frame, the experiences of eight lecturers at a university involved in teacher induction of honours-level education students. This link serves as a fundamental basis between societal change that speaks to creating a space for the African child in challenging teacher conceptions of power and privilege and rethinking the norms of praxis that manifest when teachers enter the classroom. Semi-structured interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed to gain understanding as to the prominent methods used and the dominant conceptualisation of what decolonising the curriculum entails. Findings suggest a need to return to grassroots classroom level as a means to involve stakeholders, such as teachers and tertiary students, in shaping the curriculum. It is further found that lecturers lack the means to engage with a solely Afrocentric theoretical basis and that Western discourse remains a prominent source of knowledge due to the lack of indigenous knowledge systems and research.

Highlights

After 1994, transformation of knowledge was supposed to entail a “reorientation away from the [colonial and] apartheid knowledge system, in which curriculum was used as a tool of exclusion, to a democratic curriculum that is inclusive of all human thought” (Department of Education, 2008: 89).Perspectives in Education 2019: 36(2)universities have been challenged in addressing the quality and overall transformation of the curriculum since the demise of apartheid (Akoojee & Nkomo, 2007; Heleta, 2016)
The curriculum is “inextricably intertwined with the institutional culture and, given that the latter remains white and Eurocentric at the historically white institutions, the institutional environment is not conducive to curriculum reform” (Heleta, 2016). This is in effect representative of the link between teacher induction and teacher praxis, as South Africa’s sociocultural context is still facing post-apartheid based repercussions. In this the inequalities of service delivery and resource distribution are often scant within communities in which African learners are continuously facing the need and expected standard to abide with educators taught within a Western discourse (Theron & Theron, 2014)
In response to the task of decolonising the curriculum, higher education teachers at the Faculty of Education of a South African university embarked on a Bachelor of Education (BEd) honours-curriculum writing workshop with the purpose ofthinking ways of knowing, a deconstruction of old epistemologies and an inclusion of culturally responsive knowledge

Summary

Introduction

After 1994, transformation of knowledge was supposed to entail a “reorientation away from the [colonial and] apartheid knowledge system, in which curriculum was used as a tool of exclusion, to a democratic curriculum that is inclusive of all human thought” (Department of Education, 2008: 89). Jansen (1998:110–111) further emphasises that: Content matters, and it matters a great deal when a European-centred curriculum continues to dominate and define what counts as worthwhile knowledge and legitimate authority in South African texts and teaching; it matters very much in the context of the inherited curriculum, informed by apartheid and colonialism, in which only the more readily observable, offensive racism has been skimmed off the top This means that the call for decolonisation of the curriculum “is neither an advocacy to be anti-West, nor is it discouragement to learn from the West” and the rest of the world. Thereafter, the methodology will be presented, after which the narratives of the participants will be discussed to better understand the context within which academics decolonise the curriculum

Problem Statement and Rationale

Theoretical framework

Methodology

Results and discussion

Final reflection and demarcations of the study