{"id":76493,"date":"2016-08-17T02:47:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T00:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2016-08-17T02:47:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T00:47:39","slug":"decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/decolonisation-debate-is-a-chance-to-rethink-the-role-of-universities-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Decolonisation debate is a chance to rethink the role of universities | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Decolonisation debate is a chance to rethink the role of universities<\/a>: <\/p>\n

The decolonisation of South Africa's university curriculum seems to have fallen off the agenda, overtaken by the push for free higher education.<\/span> Shutterstock<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When South African students launched the \u201cRhodes Must Fall\u201d campaign in 2015, one of their major demands was that the university curriculum be decolonised. This seems to have fallen off the agenda, overtaken by the push for free higher education.<\/p>\n

It would be a pity if funding challenges \u2013 important as they are \u2013 preclude a focus on challenges related to higher education\u2019s core functions: teaching, learning and research.<\/p>\n

The decolonisation debate raises critical issues about the relationship between power, knowledge and learning. It provides an opportunity to rethink the role of universities in social and economic development and in fashioning a common nation.<\/p>\n

There are two underlying issues that should be unpacked to take the decolonisation debate forward.<\/p>\n

Institutional cultures in focus<\/h2>\n

The first issue is to recognise that decolonisation is about more than the curriculum. It involves more than changing reading lists through adding texts by African writers and those from the global south. It is about how knowledge \u2013 and the assumptions and values that underpin its conception, construction and transmission \u2013 is reflected in the university as a social institution.<\/p>\n

It is in essence about institutional culture: the ways of seeing and doing that permeate a university and are reflected in learning and teaching. In this sense it is both about the formal curriculum and the informal or \u201chidden\u201d curriculum. This includes the symbols and naming conventions that privilege and affirm certain knowledge and cultural traditions while excluding others.<\/p>\n

Decolonisation is first and foremost about inclusion, recognition and affirmation. It seeks to affirm African knowledge and cultural traditions in universities, which remain dominated by western traditions. As a student commented during a panel about decolonisation at the University of Johannesburg (UJ):<\/p>\n

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Please let us see ourselves within the degrees that are taught \u2013 otherwise, UJ, how is it an African university?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n