Ubuntu currere in the academy: a case study from the South African experience

ABSTRACT

Universities in the Global South continue to be confronted with the ethical demands for transformation and decolonsiation. In this paper, we discuss the epistemic possibilities for transforming and decolonising curricula. Building on the work of Pinar and Le Grange, we propose the notion of Ubuntu currrere as an emancipatory alternative to the traditional top-down, hierarchical approach to designing, teaching, and assessing curricula, research and community engagement. We argue that curricula can be thought of as an active conceptual tool that is dialectical, inclusive, and democratic in its very constitution, capable of enabling varied voices such as those from students, lecturers, policy makers, communtiy stakeholders, industry, and others. As such, we argue that curricula should not have epistemic closure. We recommend an Ubuntu currere pedagogy that can respond to the clarion calls for South African higher education’s transformation in reconceptualising varied voices as premised on democratic thought, diversity, and critical engagement that foster social justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Ubuntu currere
• South African higher education
• emancipatory pedagogy
• pedagogical praxis
• decoloniality
• transformation

Notes

1. President Cyril Ramaphosa is the South African President who was elected into office on the 15 February 2018. His administration has often advanced the discourse that South Africa is entering the fourth industrial revolution and that this ‘new dawn’ of democratic consolidation, acccoountability and technological innovation will uplift millions of South Africans from poverty and push the country into a modern liberal economy (see Moerane 2019; Moosa 2019, Shubin 2019).

2. In this paper, by a prior conceptions of curriculum constructions in South African higher education, we are referring to the various ways in which curriculum is given as ‘already is’, and students are often not involved in its conception/design/and even teaching.

3. In this paper, our conception of social justice is informed by the commitment to inclusive, democratic and colloborative curriculum thinking and its pedagogic teraching. We believe that curricula ought to be reimaginined and conceptualised from the ‘bottom up’, with student input on the kinds of knowledge(s) and knowers that are valued and legitimated in curricula.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo

Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo is a scholar in the field of Higher Education and politics. His research interests include theorising South African higher education transformation; epistemological access and curricula; higher education student movements, and the philosophy of education. He has an established research publication record in the transformation of the South African education system. Currently, he is a lecturer in the department of Curriculum and Education Studies at the School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal. He holds a PhD in Higher Education Studies and Masters’ Degree (Cum Laude) in Political and International Studies from Rhodes University. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education for 2018–2019. He is the Convener of the Special Interest Group in Knowledge-Building in Educational practices, South African Education Research Association (SAERA).

Lester Brian Shawa

Lester Brian Shawa is Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Studies and coordinator of the Postgraduate Diploma in Higher Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. His research interests include Higher Education policy praxis (policy, governance and management), Higher Education pedagogy and curricula, quality discourses in Higher Education, and Teacher Education. Dr Shawa’s recent research activities have included: the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the role of middle-level academics in Higher Education governance, epistemological and ontological dimensions in Higher Education, decoloniality/decolonisation in Higher Education, the internationalisation of Higher Education, and civil society and development effectiveness.

Sabelo Abednego Nxumalo

Sabelo Abednego Nxumalo is a lecturer in the discipline of Physical Education and Life Orientation at the College of Humanities, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pinetown, South Africa. He holds a Master of Science in Sports Science. His research interests include physical activity, physical education, exercise immunology, and indigenous knowledge, games and sport. He is currently registered for a Ph.D. in Sports Science with the University of KwaZulu-Natal.