Decolonial Multicultural Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Dichotomy of Pluriversality in Curricula Craft Context

Abstract

This article explores decolonial epistemic priorities in Open and distance learning (ODL) multicultural teacher education and training praxis, raises questions about the andragogical approach, and challenges the primary educational goal for students, opining that multicultural teacher education and training has become fixated on a simplistic decoloniality of Western knowledges and practices. Using the internet based asynchronous OBB system; I adopted a qualitative discursive analysis to identify linguistic conventions within the academic discourse message board community of practice as regards the dominate views and values that can be embedded in curriculum craft in post-colonial states. I put forward a case to prioritise the development of learning dispositions in multicultural students that encourage openness to further inquiry and productive ways of thinking in and through complex and contested knowledge terrains with the hope of engendering the concept pluriversality. I argue that this andragogical approach adds a critical dimension to the decolonial task in imbedding first nation’s indigenous knowledges, views and/or perspectives rather than mimicking fixated Western priorities.