Title: Decolonising the Curriculum: Justice, Humanisation and Healing through Education

 

Date: Thursday, 9 March 2017

Time: 17:00 – 18:30

Venue: Dutch Reformed Church Universiteitsoord, c/o Duxbury and Herold Street (entrance Herold Street)

Dress: Day wear

Enquiries: Ms Maliga Govender, 012 420 2444

RSVP: Click here by 7 March 2017

 

Persons with disabilities are kindly requested to contact Neo Maseko on 012 420 2631 if assistance is required.

 

The call to decolonise sites of higher education in South Africa is not a new one. However, since October 2015, the coordinated protests of tertiary students across the country for free, decolonised, Afrocentric education unapologetically brought to the fore the new generation’s explicit rejection of the modes of knowledge production, knowledge consumption and knowledge application thus far imposed on them. Much of this discourse has been situated in the context of Africa’s history of subjugation by Western colonialism in all areas of African life. Other parts of this discourse prescribe a decolonisation of the academic space as a necessary part of the reconciliation process in South Africa, a necessary part of repairing and reinvigorating the hitherto damaged identity of Black, Coloured and Indian peoples and a necessary part of obtaining a truly transformed society. In this paper I aim to interrogate what it is that we currently understand to be the colonial dimensions of the curriculum as we know it and to challenge the normalisation of colonial attitudes and approaches to education. After addressing these, I aim to imagine and conceptualise what a decolonised curriculum (and by extension a decolonised academy) would look like. Finally, I aim to highlight the need to contextualise the decolonisation of education as a matter of justice, human dignity and healing. By decolonising academic curricula, my proposition is that we maximise our ability to influence and shape arenas beyond those of knowledge production which in turn contributes to the humanisation of our society.

 

Ms Lovelyn Nwadeyi is a young and vibrant Nigerian-South African woman who hails from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. She holds a BA International Studies degree from Stellenbosch University and an MSc in Peace and Conflict Studies degree from the Uppsala University in Sweden. She has been involved in diverse roles related to student and worker activism during the first wave (2015) of the movements of #FeesMustFall and #EndOutsourcing in South Africa. She currently is working in the telecommunications industry with a focus on public policy and regularly speaks on matters related to socio-economic and gender justice.

 

Lovelyn has worked as a volunteer and a professional in diverse capacities and most of her work entails engaging with young people for leadership development, public speaking and debating skills training. In the corporate space, she has been involved in organisational and talent management as well as sales and research activities for technology solutions to human resources and staffing problems.

 

In between what she gets paid to do and what she does pro-bono, Lovelyn loves to read stories, tell stories, enjoy good food and make music.