https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7795-0280
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Abstract
This article argues that decolonising educational undertakings is a difficult task, even when the ambitions to apply decolonising approaches are clearly articulated. Our case analysis of two contemporary master’s in peace education programmes in Rwanda, that explicitly focus on reconciliation, shows evidence of limited capacity by the educators to decolonise them. We draw from semi-structured interviews with students and teachers, as well as text analysis of syllabuses, course guides, etc, and demonstrate that access for all societal groups to the programmes is restricted: the extent of decolonisation of the education itself, including alternative narratives of the conflict history as well as the conceptualisation of ethnic ‘identity’ within peace education, is still limited. These master of arts programmes thus preserve colonial legacies and contribute to maintain historical hierarchical relations between the Hutu and Tutsi groups in the country.
Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous reviewers and the guest editor Swati Parashar of Third World Quarterly for their invaluable comments and suggestions that have undoubtedly improved this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Bentrovato, “Whose Past, Whose Future?”; Bentrovato, Narrating and Teaching the Nation; Shizha and Makuvaza, Re-Thinking Postcolonial Education in Sub-Saharan Africa; King, From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda.
2 The Uppsala Conflict Database (https://pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/) mentions more than half a million (accessed 10 February 2020), and Desforges mentions the same number; the United Nations reports about 800,000, but this also includes other victims who died due to other causes.
3 Bentrovato, “Whose Past, Whose Future?”
4 Davids and Waghid, chapter 4.
5 L’estoile, “The Past as It Lives Now,” 268.
6 Ogar, Nwoye, and Bassey, “Archetype of Globalization,” 90.
7 Ibid., 270.
8 Higgs, “African Philosophy and the Decolonisation of Education in Africa,” 38.
9 King, From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda.
10 Mawere, “Indigenous Knowledge and Public Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
11 See also Shizha and Makuvaza, Re-Thinking Postcolonial Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
12 Tawil and Harley, Education, Conflict and Social Cohesion; Harris and Morrison,
Peace Education.
13 Jabri, “Disarming Norms: Postcolonial Agency.”
14 Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought.
15 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Dynamics of Epistemological Decolonistion in the 21st Century,” 17.
16 Bentrovato, Narrating and Teaching the Nation, 25.
17 Ibid., 25.
18 Bentrovato, “Whose Past, Whose Future?”; Bentrovato, Narrating and Teaching the Nation; Shizha and Makuvaza, Re-thinking Postcolonial Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
19 See also Buckley-Zistel, “Nation, Narration, Unification?; Herath, Schulz, and Sentama, “Academics’ Manufacturing of Counter-Narratives.”
20 Hilker, “Role of Education in Driving Conflict,” 267.
21 Herath, Schulz, and Sentama, “Academics’ Manufacturing of Counter-Narratives,” 15.
22 Bentrovato, Narrating and Teaching the Nation, 12.
23 King, From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda.
24 Ibid.
25 Garnett, Becoming Rwandan.
26 See, for example Hilker, “Role of Education in Driving Conflict.”
27 Bajaj and Brantmeier, “Politics, Praxis, and Possibilities,” 121.
28 Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
29 Bajaj and Brantmeier, “Politics, Praxis, and Possibilities,” 121.
30 Zembylas, “Con-/Divergences between Postcolonial and Critical Peace Education,” 1.
31 Ibid.
32 Zembylas, “Con-/Divergences between Postcolonial and Critical Peace Education,” 2.
33 Ibid, 4.
34 Ibid, 10.
35 Ibid, 11.
36 Ibid.
37 Subedi and Daza, “Possibilities of Postcolonial Praxis in Education,” 2–3.
38 Herath, Schulz, and Sentama, “Academics’ Manufacturing of Counter-Narratives.”
39 Zembylas, “Con-/Divergences between Postcolonial and Critical Peace Education,” Subedi and Daza, “Possibilities of Postcolonial Praxis in Education.”
40 Bentrovato, Narrating and Teaching the Nation, 26.
41 Subedi and Daza, “Possibilities of Postcolonial Praxis in Education,” 5.
42 Inspired by Bellimo and Williams, “(Re)Constructing Memory: School Textbooks,” vii.
43 From the GSP programme syllabus, paragraph 15. (Emphasis original)
44 From the PSCT programme syllabus, paragraph 10.
45 From the PSCT programme syllabus, paragraph 10.
46 King, From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda, 130–31.
47 Freedman et al., “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts.”
48 Itorero is a traditional educational and public policy mechanism in Rwanda, through
which the government recreates and inculcates a new citizenship based on a new understanding of the Rwandan history, cultural values/civic education and national identity, since 1994. Republic of Rwanda, National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. 15 Years of Unity and Reconciliation Process; National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. Unity and Reconciliation Process in Rwanda.
49 Interview with a student, Kigali, June 14, 2017.
50 Freedman et al., “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts.”
51 Ibid., 675–6.
52 Lecturers interviewed, Kigali, June 16, 2017.
53 Since 2003, there has been an ongoing capacity building partnership project among several universities in Sweden and the University of Rwanda. SIDA is funding this capacity-building project, which includes cooperation between the Center for Conflict Management and the University of Gothenburg.
54 Students interviewed, Kigali, June 16, 2017.
55 Lecturer interviewed, Kigali, June 14, 2017.
56 King, From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda, 127.
57 Interview with a student, Kigali, May, 5, 2016.
58 Interview with a student, Kigali, June 5, 2016.
59 Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, 28.
60 Bale, Imagined Olympians, 6.
61 Interview with a lecturer, Kigali, June 6, 2016.
62 Bale, Imagined Olympians, 6.
63 MINEDUC, Education Sector Policy, 4.
64 Rombouts, “Women and Reparations in Rwanda.”
65 Amnesty International, Marked for Death.
66 Interview with a student, Kigali, June 14, 2017.
67 FARG and Ibuka are associations created for the support of genocide survivors in Rwanda.
68 Interview with a student, Kigali, June 14, 2017.
69 Interview with a lecturer, Kigali, June 14, 2017.
70 Borg, “Rwanda’s French-to-English ‘Language Switch,’” 68.
71 McGreal, “Why Rwanda Said Adieu to French”; Rurangirwa, “Absence of
Kinyarwanda in the Current Language Policy,” 169.
72 Ibid., 74–5.
73 Interview with a student, Kigali, June 16, 2017.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michael Schulz
Michael Schulz is an Associate Professor in peace and development research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and has published extensively on various issues (resistance, democracy and state building, conflicts and regionalism), most recently Between Resistance, Sharia Law and Demo-Islamic Politics (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2020).
Ezechiel Sentama
Ezechiel Sentama is a Rwanda national and a PhD holder in peace and development research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He also holds international certificates in peacebuilding, genocide and security. He has been a permanent Lecturer at the University of Rwanda (2000–2018), and a Guest Researcher at the University of Gothenburg (January–December, 2018), and was employed as a temporary Senior Lecturer at the Linnaeus University (2018–2019). He is now Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at the Coventry University, UK. His research interests focus mainly on reconciliation and peacebuilding.