Decolonising the school curriculum in South Africa: black women teachers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

In South Africa, the socio-cultural context for this paper, the idea of decolonisation has taken centre stage in higher education concerns, creating the pressure for curriculum transformation. However, decolonising the curriculum manifests itself at all educational levels and not only in the higher education field. At school level, the curriculum in a postcolonial South African context has undergone many curriculum changes and continues to face a crisis stemming from the legacy of colonisation and apartheid. The dialogue around curriculum policy change has produced a wave of implications for the teacher education curriculum at University level and for the marginalised cohort of students entering the university space. This paper reports an interpretivist and qualitative study that explored the perspectives of ‘black’ women teachers on decolonisation and on the curriculum in a changing South African schooling context, in the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. The findings of the paper revealed that although the majority of teachers have some conceptualisation of decolonisation and its relation to the school curriculum, these are limited in number and tangential. However, they appeared to be cognisant of and responsive to the implications of ‘decolonisation’ on their roles and practices as teachers within their subject disciplines. This paper articulates the social and intellectual imperatives to rethink the school curriculum and the role of teachers in a transformative South African context.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonisation
• curriculum
• decolonisation
• teachers’ perspectives
• transformation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pryah Mahabeer

Pryah Mahabeer is an academic in the Discipline of Curriculum and Education Studies at the School of Education of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. Her expertise and research focus lie in curriculum studies, focusing on curriculum policy, curriculum decision-making, intellectualisation of the curriculum, curriculum change and development, curriculum leadership and management; assessment, teacher education and development, and educational research. She has an interdisciplinary approach to curriculum studies. Her constructivist teaching and learning approach extends from the undergraduate level to the postgraduate level.