Lindi Goba and Mpho Koka
A group of academics called for the decolonisation of the higher education system during the Facing Race Week on the Potchefstroom campus of North-West University (NWU).
This formed the backbone of a discussion during a round-table, which was titled The Politics of the Canon. The panel comprised of a group of academics from the University of South Africa (UNISA) and University of Free State (UFS).
Zethu Cakata, professor in the Psychology department at the University of South Africa (UNISA), Dr Chantelle Gray van Heerden, senior lecturer at the Institute of Gender Studies at UNISA, and Neil Roos, professor in the History Department at the University of the Free State (UFS), agreed that African forms of knowledge should be introduced in institutions of higher learning.
“Western forms of epistemological knowledge should not dominate university spaces. Africans are expected to dumb their own forms of knowledge and learn Western forms of knowledge,” Cakata said.
She went on to say that universities should make space for all forms of knowledge. “We should share knowledge and not impose knowledge on each other,” she added.
In addition, Cakata said that the current higher education system isolates black children from their communities. “When black graduates go back to their communities, they detest their African cultures and are not enthused to build up their communities,” she expressed.
“The Western ideologies that the black youth are subjected to gradually teach them to reject the African knowledge systems,” she continued. Cakata said that African cultures have been eroded and that the current education system is destroying black families. “Once qualified, black students can no longer resonate with the communities in which they were raised and simply move to the urban areas,” she emphasised.
Roos said decolonisation of the curriculum means giving a voice to the actual people at the picket lines. “Before we write about protests like Fees Must Fall, we as academics must make the actual protestors part of the discussion because they are the ones at the forefront of anti-racism,” said Roos.
Furthermore, as a lecturer in the History Department, he said universities should decolonise history. “Decolonised history is one that is anti-colonial and anti-racist,” said Roos.
“There is a need for every module offered at universities to be questioned in terms of race and the history thereof. Asking broad and in-depth questions will take us to the right place as a country.”
He went on to say that society should be decolonised.
“The big issue with our society is the system which creates the problems. There is a system of racism. White South Africans should educate each other on racism and whiteness (white dominance),” he said.
Similarly, Van Heerden said: "Whiteness has always been viewed as the most noble and measurable racial category hence everything in society is measured against that category. The world unfolds from a white perspective."
“White people should decolonise their minds and realise that whiteness still exists post- 1994. What white people can start doing to decolonise their minds is to try reading only books written by black authors for a year,” she said.
“This will help them learn that black forms of intellectual production exist out there,” she added.
“We need to realise that African ways teach us different values about disciplines in academia. We must decolonise because what is happening in our curriculum now is not in line with our African principles,” Cakata said.
The round-table was part of a five-day event that concluded on Friday, 12 April.
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