Why decolonising the South African university curriculum will fail

ABSTRACT

This paper sets out to explore how academics can become agents of meaningful educational change and social cohesion, by implementing a Pedagogy of Compassion. The education triad comprises the teacher, the learner and the content (curriculum), which unfolds within historical, political, social and educational contexts. Changing one aspect of this triad – the curriculum- without due consideration to the others, will not effect the desired change. In the context of the university, the demographics of the learner has radically changed and a massive drive to decolonise the curriculum has been initiated, but little if any attention has been given to academics who deliver the curriculum. I argue that the Achilles’ heel in the decolonisation of the curriculum project of South African universities is the academic.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic
• curriculum
• decolonisation
• educational change
• pedagogy of compassion
• teacher beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 A version of this literature review section appeared in Vandeyar (2016).