119

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

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. 

Keywords: Decolonisation; higher education; curriculum reform; 
Foucauldian discourse; teacher induction; indigenous knowledge 

1. 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). 

Dr Preya Pillay
University of the 
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 
School of Education: 
Curriculum 
Email: preya.pillay@wits.ac.za

Dr Eben Swanepoel
University of the Free State, 
Bloemfontein 
Faculty of Education 
Psychology of Education  
Email: swanepoeleh@ufs.ac.za

DOI: http://dx.doi.
org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.
v36i2.10
ISSN 0258-2236
e-ISSN 2519-593X
Perspectives in Education 
2019 36(2): 119-131
© UV/UFS

mailto:preya.pillay@wits.ac.za
mailto:swanepoeleh@ufs.ac.za
http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v36i2.10
http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v36i2.10
http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v36i2.10


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Perspectives in Education 2019: 36(2)

However, universities have been challenged in addressing the quality and overall transformation 
of the curriculum since the demise of apartheid (Akoojee & Nkomo, 2007; Heleta, 2016). According 
to the Department of Education, in 2008 the transformational efforts have not “translated into any 
significant shifts in the structure and content of the curriculum” (Heleta, 2016:4). 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 ultimately 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). 

Garuba (2015) argues that to understand students’ call for curriculum reform, we need 
to talk about and engage in the re-conceptualisation and decolonisation of the curriculum 
in South Africa. We need to consider the two approaches discussed by Garuba. The first 
approach is to “add new items to an existing curriculum”. The second approach is to “rethink 
how the object of study itself is constituted” and then reconstruct it and bring about fundamental 
change (Garuba, 2015: 2). The emphasis is a critical account of knowledge production with the 
aim of valuing and including marginalised groups in the curriculum. This is similar to Ngugi’s 
(1981: 87) argument, which states that decolonisation of the curriculum is about Africans 
being seen “clearly in relationship with ourselves and other selves in the universe”. This 
echoes the point about re-centring Africa in the curriculum, and ensuring that the curriculum 
speaks to, and from, the African context. Ngugi (1981: 87) calls this “a quest for relevance”. 
This relevance can only be established if African universities succeed in decolonising the 
mind. Kaya and Seleti (2013: 33) concur in stating that a decolonised curriculum must reject 
the “utilisation of [a] dominant Western worldview of knowing and knowledge production as 
the only way of knowing”. At further grassroots level, the need for an Afrocentric pedagogical 
lens needs to be infused within the process of teacher induction, allowing the skills to be 
transferred to classroom practice in an effort to speak to the needs of learners inclusively. It is 
thus critical to examine the ways of knowing and thinking by examining the values instilled 
during the process of teacher induction as a means to enlarge teaching spaces that mobilise 
critical dialogue, connectedness, caring and collective agency. These values need to be 
critically evaluated when considered how Western discourse shapes the ramifications thereof 
at a practical level and to question how these core values and knowledge systems either 
synchronise or regress from the Afrocentric worldview (Cherrington, 2017). 

It is important to note that decolonisation does not require removing white men and women, 
both foreign and local, from the curriculum. However, they cannot be seen as the all-knowing and 
all-important canon upon which human knowledge rests and through which white and Western 
domination is maintained (Heleta, 2016). 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. Rather, it 



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is a call to make higher education (HE) “relevant to the material, historical and social realities 
of the communities in which universities operate” (Letsekha, 2013: 14). They (academics) 
need to develop graduates and intellectuals who can address the epistemic violence of the 
past and present and who will go on to rewrite the “histories and humanity [of both South Africa 
and Africa] so cruelly seized and denied by Europe” (Zeleza, 2009: 116) throughout centuries. 
Spivak (1994) defines as “epistemic violence” the Eurocentric and Western domination and 
subjugation of the (former) colonial subjects and misconception of their understanding and 
perception of the world. This is a result of the “violence of imperialistic epistemic, social 
and disciplinary inscription” (Heleta, 2016:4). Thus, the involvement of academics in the 
decolonisation of curriculum requires “self-reflexivity” (Langdon, 2013:385), recognition of 
privilege, personal change and growth as well as unlearning of the old knowledge designed to 
subjugate and exploit “the other”.

In essence, higher education needs to trouble the traditional notion of what curriculum is 
in light of the quest for decolonisation. The idea of curriculum is hardly new – but the way one 
understands and theorises it has altered over the years – and there remains considerable 
dispute as to its meaning (Van den Akker, 2006). In the same sense, we need to trouble how 
teachers reflect and act upon the curriculum (as well as their own identities); and thus to 
inform and equip teachers to be able to speak to the views and traditions of the African child. 
Francis and le Roux (2011) speak to the importance of teacher induction to respond to issues 
of social justice, drawing on the complexity of the myriad of identities which shape not only the 
perspective of the teacher, but also the connectedness of the African child and, in essence, all 
identities that are located within one classroom. 

Many higher education teachers are asked to decolonise the curriculum, yet there is little 
agreement as to whether teachers are prepared for this task. Subsequently, this paper is 
an attempt to articulate, through the case study of a university in South Africa, what higher 
education teachers understand by the terms curriculum, their understanding of how curriculum 
should be decolonised and the process involved, their critical analysis of writing for a 
decolonised curriculum and their suggestions to enhance the decolonisation writing process. 
Furthermore, as argued by le Roux (2014,) it becomes increasingly important during teacher 
induction to challenge the subjectivities of teachers as to power and privilege, as a means to 
enhance restorative pedagogies that will cater to all knowledge systems. This is despite the 
teachers’ personal contexts and assumptions about what knowledge should and should not 
be taught; thus, challenging assumptions of how teachers think about their own practice and 
accordingly accommodating multiculturalism.

While universities globally have formulated new policies and frameworks pertaining 
to equality, equity, transformation and change, institutional cultures and epistemological 
traditions have not changed considerably. The policies might be there, but the willingness to 
implement them is lacking (Department of Education, 2008:41). This is evident by students’ 
recent call for decolonisation of the curriculum. Additionally, the 2008 Report of the Ministerial 
Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of Discrimination in 
Public Higher Education Institutions reiterated this point: “discrimination, in particular with 
regard to racism and sexism, is pervasive in our institutions. There is a disjuncture between 
institutional culture and transformation policies” (McKaiser, 2016:16). This report by the 
Ministerial Committee in turn placed urgency on many higher education institutions to (re)think 
how knowledge is constructed and presented; in particular, How do we teach beyond content 
and numbers? Yet the extent of the preparedness of higher education teachers to respond 



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to this call remains unknown. How higher education teachers understand and conceptualise 
decolonisation of the curriculum is somewhat unclear. This is evident by the lack of research 
done in this area (HESA, 2014:7). The current research can provide a sturdier analysis of 
higher education teachers’ understanding of decolonisation of the curriculum and contribute 
towards the emerging discussion on decolonising of curriculum in higher education within the 
South African context. 

The content-cleansing process to rid curriculum of prejudicial content continues to unfold 
in many higher education institutions. However, there is still a dearth of knowledge as to the 
ideological subtexts of curriculum. As lecturers in Curriculum Studies, we became conscious 
through informal conversations of the difficulties many lecturers face in terms of writing a 
curriculum that responds to decolonisation. Getting to grips with the lecturers’ experiences 
of writing for a decolonised curriculum at the Faculty of Education and seeking to arrive at a 
deeper understanding of the intricacies surrounding these curriculum issues was in itself a 
strong motivation for us to embark on this investigation. It is accordingly that this research 
article speaks to the following three research questions:

Research Question 1: How has a writing programme for honours curriculum reform 
transformed lecturer perceptions about their own practice during a process of decolonising 
the curriculum?

Research Question 2: What influence does power and personal knowledge have during the 
process of decolonising the curriculum at honours level?

Research Questions 3: What challenges do lecturers encounter during the process of 
decolonising the curriculum?

These questions will be answered through firstly exploring the theoretical framework that 
underpins the study, the work of Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1980). 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. 

2. Problem Statement and Rationale 
We don’t want to be treated like symptoms, we want to see ourselves reflected in 
the curriculum, and we want to share our African experiences and knowledge (UFS 
student, 2016).

After 21 years of democracy, when it might have been expected that curriculum matters should 
have been adequately addressed, student protests have ignited debates on, “What does it 
mean to be at a university in Africa?”, with responses mostly being related to the relevance of 
what is taught (Maserumule, 2015). Student protests fuelled by anger have highlighted that 
curricula at African universities are not linked to African cultures and realities (Molefe, 2016). 
Students have argued that most universities still follow the hegemonic “Eurocentric epistemic 
canon” that “attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge production” (Mbembe, 
2016: 32). Such curricula do not develop students’ critical and analytical skills to understand 
and move the African continent forward. The one-sided and subjective “epistemological 
truth” reflected in curricula is a “reproduction of epistemological blindness that silences other 
knowledge’s and ways of creating knowledge” (Motta, 2013:97). 

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) 



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honours-curriculum writing workshop with the purpose of (re-)thinking ways of knowing, a 
deconstruction of old epistemologies and an inclusion of culturally responsive knowledge. 
Higher education teachers at this university engaged collaboratively in a two-day-long writing 
workshop effectively responding to the “question of the moment”, i.e., of the decolonisation of 
curriculum. This study explored the experiences of eight lecturers at the Faculty of Education 
who participated in the BEd Honours writing exercise with the purpose of decolonising the 
curriculum. 

3. Theoretical framework 
The theoretical ideas of Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1980) underpin this study. Foucault 
theorised about interrelated concepts of regimes of truth, power and knowledge. Particular 
disciplines have specific knowledge that will dominate and point to what is considered true. 
Foucault (1980: 131) refers to this as “regimes of truth”. These regimes of truth guide how 
people think, feel and act in relation to the self, others and social practice (MacNaughton, 2003). 
Regimes of truth are represented through a specific subject knowledge. Yet, “what counts as 
knowledge” is also an issue of “whose knowledge”, since knowledge is always “someone’s 
knowledge” (Englund, Forsberg & Sundberg, 2012). Therefore, regimes of truth consist of 
symbols that carry meaning, and a curriculum is the medium of conveying meaning, liberation, 
reproduction, inclusion and exclusion. Foucault has also used the phrase “the politics of 
knowledge” and describes processes by which “knowledge functions as a form of power and 
disseminates the effects of power” (Foucault, 1980:69). 

Through contextualising the study, we as researchers and academics questioned who 
holds the power when a specific curriculum is interpreted or transformed and how academics 
and stakeholders specifically consider how their knowledge is imbedded in certain restrictions, 
bias and power systems that fail to realise the ideals of a decolonised curriculum.

According to Foucault (1980:369): 
Power/knowledge is located within the “deep” regimes of discourse/practice. It is 
knowledge that permits statements [about expectations and practices for children and 
programmes] to emerge and be legitimated as truth. It is produced by power and in turn 
produces power. 

To Foucault (1980), knowledge and power cannot be separated. The type of knowledge 
produced influences the individual’s behaviour and has a controlling effect, such that 
knowledge is inseparable from power. Knowledge is neither universal nor is it a given, 
unmediated representation of the world; rather, it is a fallible product under social, cultural 
and historical constraints. If higher education is to re-centre itself, academics and other staff 
must be invited to engage with the powerful knowledges they bring in. An understanding of 
Foucault’s regimes of truth, power and knowledge will provide a deeper understanding of 
lecturers’ understanding of writing for a decolonised curriculum. An understanding of how 
regimes of truth and power and knowledge are embedded in the curriculum could contribute 
towards the emerging discussion on decolonising of curriculum through a critical lens. Higher 
education teachers need to “understand that curriculum is a powerful signifying system... 
so that they may have increased agency in this critical task of decolonisation” (Foucault, 
1980:250). This is done through investigating how academics, working in close relation with 
teacher induction programmes, and specifically the honours programme in Education, mediate 



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and navigate power relations, knowledge bias and background influences when shaping their 
curriculum, ultimately translating into practice on the part of teachers at grassroots level. 

4. Methodology 
4.1 Research design and paradigm 
The interpretive paradigm was selected to underpin the assumptions of this study. In this 
paradigm, the aim of educational research is to understand the meaning, in this case, behind 
higher education teachers’ experiences, which is part of the social and cultural context in which 
they occur (Kim, 2003). Symbolically, the role of the researcher is to understand, explain and 
demystify social reality through multiple interpretations that vary, whereby results are created 
and not found (Mack, 2010). Studies in this field are distinctive and cannot be generalised, 
typical of such case study research (Christiansen, Bertram & Land, 2010). This suggests that 
the interpretive paradigm together with the case study research style is the most suitable 
approach because it deals with personal experiences (similar to the aim of this study). 

As a form of qualitative research, a case study has been chosen as the research style for 
conducting this study. Case studies are implemented when researchers intend to support their 
argument by a thorough analysis of a person, a group of persons, an organisation or a specific 
project (Christiansen et al., 2010). From an interpretive perspective, case studies aim towards 
a deeper understanding of how participants relate and interact with each other in a context-
specific situation and the meaning that arises from the phenomena under study (Maree, 2007). 

4.2 Data collection and ethical approval
Interviews represent a systematic way of talking and listening to people in order to generate 
data used for research purposes (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006). The study at hand employed 
a semi-structured method of interviewing eight lecturers individually over a thirty-minute 
session. Used effectively, individual semi-structured interviews inculcate an atmosphere for 
participants to feel free in expressing their views in their own terms that can provide reliable, 
comparable qualitative data (for in-depth description). 

Ethical approval was obtained at institutional level on part of the Ethics Committee for the 
Faculty of Education of the respective university where the study was conducted. Furthermore, 
gatekeeper consent on the part of the Dean of Education was obtained, while all participants 
were fully informed and briefed about the study, with consent provided to be interviewed. 

4.3 Participants
Teddlie (2007) describes a sample as the representative selection of people, places or things 
from which data are gathered. The specific context in which this study took place was a higher 
education institution in South Africa. The purposive sampling method was selected, which is 
frequently used in qualitative studies. Purposive sampling involves selecting individuals or 
institutions to answer the research questions of a study (Teddlie, 2007). The participants in 
this study included the eight most accessible lecturers (convenience sampling) who were part 
of the BEd honours writing exercise for the semi-structured one-on-one interviews and who 
formed core stakeholders in shaping and teaching honours-level courses at the Faculty of 
Education of the selected university. 



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Analysis of results 
Validity and reliability are core concepts during researching either quantitative or qualitative 
designed studies, and specific consideration is given to the importance thereof in relation to 
this qualitative based paper. According to Holloway and Wheelers (1996: 162), “validity is the 
extent to which any researcher’s tool measures what is supposed to measure and reliability is 
the extent to which the instrument, when used more than once, will produce the same results 
or answers in the research”. For this qualitative case study, these two concepts are replaced 
by the concept trustworthiness, which is used in qualitative studies, where measurement is 
not important because qualitative studies deal with description. Since the case study style 
of research was implemented in this study, the aim was to describe and not to measure 
(Christiansen et al., 2010). In describing trustworthiness in qualitative studies, the concepts 
of credibility, neutrality, confirmability, dependability, applicability and transferability supplant 
issues of reliability and validity in evaluating the quality of the research (Golafshani, 2003). 
Therefore, to enhance trustworthiness in this study, two researchers interviewed the eight 
lecturers and recorded (with tape recorders) the interviews to be transcribed. Data from the 
two researchers were compared for triangulation purposes. 

5. Results and discussion 
The introduction of the results and discussion section is best informed through a direct 
verbatim extract of one of the participants, participant 7, whose narrative embodies the paving 
of the discussion forward in relation to decolonising the curriculum:

Decolonisation refers to the dismantling of colonial systems and content within the 
curriculum that were established during the period of time when nations-maintained 
dominion over dependent territories. Decolonising the university curriculum could happen 
by tapping into different indigenous knowledge systems, thus expanding the knowledge 
base that students can access. One major problem of Europe is that content of Europe 
is over-represented in theory, knowledge and education presented at local universities. 
I believe that the way forward is move towards practical actions that need to be taken. 
This include the thoughts and writings of African academics and to draw from African 
experiences (knowing, doing and being) (Participant 7).

Through the analysis of results and the coding process, two dominant themes emerged, 
namely, “Liberation and dismantlement of Eurocentric knowledge power” and “Collaboration 
amongst stakeholders in decolonising the curriculum”. Of note, however, is that various 
subthemes also emerged, amongst others, “The longitudinal process of decolonising 
curriculum” and “Ambiguity of policy and curriculum in the South African process”. In relation 
to the theoretical framework, however, we postulated that these themes reconstruct and 
organise segmented knowledge akin to Western discourse through empowering the views of 
the researchers. As such, the discussion of results is informed mainly through the voices of 
the participants within a uniform non-segmented discussion, organically conveying meaning 
and as such removing systemic power and colonial dissemination of results on part of the 
researchers. We in turn needed to question our own manner of knowing and doing, and, in 
essence, the “being” of the discussion itself. This process mirrors that of not only the thinking 
that pre-service teachers should critically embody, but speaks to the practice for teachers who 
will need to rethink and frame to teach within an Afrocentric context. 

Participant 1: We forgot… We forgot a lot of things to say. As young as you are, you are 
a leader in your own making. That’s what you’re supposed to know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization


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From the onset of interviewing, the concept of collaboration and self-empowerment became 
a prominent part in what methods are of importance in deconstructing power and relocating 
curricula within a decolonised context. It is important to note that these values are core to 
indigenous knowledge systems of the African child. While emphasis on part of the researchers 
was primarily on higher education, the participants relocated the narratives back to grassroots 
school-based level. The idea of Ubuntu enveloped these narratives, and, as proposed by 
Swanson (2007), Ubuntu provides the pivotal departure point of togetherness and human 
rights, especially in relation to schooling contexts, as a means to transcend past injustices 
and societal disharmony. Participant 1 continued the narrative of forgotten knowledge by 
relocating power back to the self as well as shared accountability:

To me, decolonising a curriculum means embracing yourself, your culture and other 
people’s capabilities. It means understanding, at a young age, that being a better 
person doesn’t mean looking down at other people. Because when the young ones were 
groomed, trying to make them better leaders for tomorrow, something was missing there. 
We forgot about Ubuntu.

This forgotten knowledge may be attributed to the Western mindset of individualistic 
imperialism dominating human capital movements in educational motives, while collectivist 
cultures are continuously growing and aiming toward the transcendence of individualistic needs 
toward leaders with collectivist-based skillsets (Triandis, 2018). Participant 2 emphasised the 
role of self-liberation, and rejected Eurocentric knowledge systems completely:

Do we mean that we have to ignore other stuff from European countries, from America, from 
different parts of the world; does it mean that? I think it does mean that, by decolonisation; 
it seems as if people are thinking of being … of being liberated themselves. My, you know, 
decolonisation is about being emancipated cognitively. 

The narrative, however, strongly situates and emphasises the systemic nature of non-
indigenous knowledge rooting curricula and in a sense restraining emancipation. It is, however, 
of note that the narrative aligns with Ngugi (1981), who postulated that relevance can only 
be found if African universities succeed in decolonising the mind. As the interview continued, 
however, and after reflecting on their own knowledge and construction of decolonising 
the curriculum, the participant revaluated their previous statement and reconstructed their 
narrative to draw more freely on the limitations, as per their own perception, of current 
theoretical lenses underlying current indigenous knowledge systems: 

I must say that we, we do have indigenous theorists, uh, but they are not, uh, adequate, 
to me, so we need to supplement what we have here with what is already existing from 
other parts of the world.

One of the prominent conversations we had prior to commencing the study pertains to 
how a lecturer can decolonise a curriculum within the balance of Eurocentric and Afrocentric 
knowledge systems. We further discussed the difficulty of drawing on indigenous knowledge 
systems as a primary point of departure. Participants 4 and 5 mirror this discussion, and 
again draw on the restraints of looking through a primary Afrocentric lens in shaping and 
constructing the curriculum, this being central to their narratives when asked what decolonising 
the curriculum entails: 

Participant 4: When we’re decolonising the curriculum, it mustn’t be addressing something 
that is outside the South African context; it must be within, so to show an understanding, 



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and it must address all the issues that are there in that particular country; you cannot 
learn about England, we’re not in England, basically.

Participant 5: You remember, most of the curriculum, especially in African states, it’s 
from overseas. It was brought in during the period of colonisation by those big countries. 
Now, the content is actually, or most of the time, is a mirror of what is happening in those 
countries. So with the effect that now it sort of ignores the indigenous knowledge that the 
country has. And, as a result, the people are saying that it’s time that now the indigenous 
knowledge that the country has also to be recognised to be part of the curriculum that has 
to be learnt. Hence, decolonisation.

The notion of collaboration and reconciliation of knowledge was articulated by Participant 3, 
who acknowledged the limitations of a solely African-centred curriculum and advocated the 
importance of global collaboration as a means to establish rapport in common ground between 
teaching and what content should be taught:

It is about 30% of international knowledge and 70% of local knowledges. And if you don’t 
adhere to that ratio of 30/70% and then you can’t tell that the indigenous knowledge is 
part of the content. You have to select the readers and the content to reflect on the local 
context.

Participant 6 also advocated this collaboration of incorporating Western discourse and 
African-centred knowledge, yet simultaneously acknowledged that this is due to the academic 
motive of engaging with international conferences and academic collaborators as a primary 
means of enrichment, neglecting African stakeholders. Participant 6 echoed this through the 
following narrative:

I think it is a balance between the two … They all start with a rush on the right [Western] 
side of the continent and I think through all this we just have to keep a balance, and maybe 
the yardstick would be which aspect from whichever side will serve the purpose the best 
without neglecting the other side, because I think for many years academics saw, uhm, let’s 
say, enrichment as going overseas. No one wanted to go up in Africa and go and share and 
go and learn there.

It becomes noteworthy that the dominant discourse of the initial part of the interviews 
located the power of what content must be taught in the hands of the lecturers; however, 
further conversations revealed the importance of participating at various levels. Considering 
the induction process of teacher education and that all participants were lecturing honourslevel 
students at the time of the study, the information on the part of these students became of 
critical value to shaping curriculum. It is furthermore important to reflect again on the narrative 
of Participant 1 of “forgotten knowledge”, and that as for higher education teachers, the 
continuous recycling of knowledge implies power and sustains systemic oppression, in other 
words, lecturers provide a specific knowledge base to students, which in turn becomes 
cornerstone to the knowledge taught within the classroom. Thus, establishing this direct link 
with educators becomes a critical component in establishing rapport with student educators 
to be prepared to enter schooling environments with the heightened cultural intelligence that 
serves the needs of the multicultural contexts of South African schools (Swanepoel, Beyers & 
De Wet, 2017). The following narratives are examples of this collaborative stance to shaping 
a decolonised curriculum:

Participant 5: Like, I’m saying, it involves the involvement of stakeholders, be it from the 
student side, the private sector as well as the different faculties in an institution, so that at 



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least we are not accused of one faculty being advanced or effecting changes while some 
are still stagnant.

Participant 4: We need, uh, workshops, because you cannot work alone; you have 
to consult the stakeholders, all those who are involved. That includes the community, 
politicians, students, parents, all sorts of people, all the stakeholders that are expected 
to contribute. They have to involve the teachers, because they are the one who are 
implementing the curriculum.

Participant 1: Embrace other people’s culture and take everyone as an asset. Make use of 
all the capabilities. Hmmm. Be cognisant that you can never decolonise curriculum as an 
individual who will teach others hence, and then begin to change, to transform curriculum.

The narrative extracts above reflect the basis of how the lecturers conceptualised and 
located their understanding of decolonising the curriculum. As noted at the commencement of 
the section, there is ambiguity about what content should be included. It was though seen as 
a process, as opposed to a once-off reimplementation of merely reconfiguring current content, 
as reflected through the following narratives:

Participant 1: How do we begin to decolonise curriculum? Because it’s not going to 
happen in a minute. I believe it’s going to take some time, but we need to make sure that 
the first thing is collaborating: sitting down and talking about it.

Participant 4: Uhm, basically, curriculum is too broad. We, we, you cannot define it in a 
short way. It is just a set of, uh, a set of … what can I say? Uuuh, philosophies that can 
be combined together to create meaning, basically; for curriculum, because it’s too broad.

Of note is that through this process that we, the two researchers, had a chance to further 
reflect on our own ideas and perceptions of decolonisation. Coming from two different 
universities and having undergone different induction programmes, we realised the manner 
in which we do not just hold our individual background knowledge and bias, but also a 
different knowledge-structure, based on our separate experiences as students and ultimately 
lecturers. Coming together and having undergone this study, we can speak to the importance 
of collaboration, Ubuntu and sharing knowledge as a means to broaden how we structure 
our curriculum. Thus not seeing curriculum transformation as being within a silo, but as a 
collaborative approach wherein individual differences are embraced and translated into the 
manner in which we create and design curriculums, as well as how we approach teaching this 
curriculum at practical level. 

6. Final reflection and demarcations of the study
After reflection on part of the researchers, it became indicative that the participants’ narratives 
contain finer nuances of what and how curriculum is perceived and produced. Participants 
alternated between using “the curriculum” and “a curriculum” or “curriculum”. Aligned with the 
basis of the study this reflects the distinctive conceptions that there is a fluid and non-unison 
formation of what curriculum is, while other participants may perceive curriculum more as a set 
framework. This is reiterated through Participant 1 who articulates that “curriculum” is formal 
and informal, and that lecturers themselves may represent the current primary stakeholders:

It could be lessons acquired by students in schools or in universities imparted by educators 
or lecturers. It could be knowledge articulated in schools. It could be knowledge that has 
not been articulated but, because of the environment, the student has something, I mean 



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they’ve acquired something subconsciously without having anyone who say: “This is what 
you’re supposed to do”. It could be knowledge that came from certain courses. It could 
be things that were not taught formally. As I’m saying, in a university a student might be 
able to acquire something from the environment without anyone saying a word. That what 
“curriculum” is to me.

We agree that the manner in which curriculum is shaped and implemented for new teachers 
need to challenge existing norms of what knowledge is being taught and the manner in which it 
is conveyed. Ultimately, as lecturers of honours level education students, we need to relocate 
our own perceptions of knowledge and construction of content to incorporate the views and 
grassroots level experiences of teachers within the system. This study focussed on lecturers, 
and further research will be valuable, from a systemic perspective, to gain stronger insight 
as to how indigenous knowledge systems in schools are currently implemented, challenged, 
troubled and ultimately adapted to fit the current content set out to be taught on part of all 
various stakeholders and to the benefit of the learners. It is only through critical examination 
and questioning that teachers will embody the skills to speak to the needs of the African child 
without the distorted lenses of Western influence; and in turn critically engage with the need to 
develop multicultural skills and competencies to cater to the African context.

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