The debate about decolonisation in higher education is topical and sometimes controversial one (Smith, 2013). In reality decolonisation can mean different things to different people in different context encompassing cultural, economic, political, material to name a few (Maldonado Torres, 2011). From higher education perspective decolinisation reflects on liberating and democratising education from the colonised curriculum who has dominated the education in the past and still seems to be dominant.
Ultimately the goal of university learning in higher education should be to offer unbiased learning curriculum and approaches. This could also be demonstrated through recruiting students from all sorts of background to enhance educational experience.
In 2016 students in University of oxford in the UK called for statue of Cecil Rhodes to be removed from the grounds of the University. The original request has in roots due to the fact that the man symbolised racist acts towards Africans, however soon the movement highlighted further deeper issues. Students highlighted that Black Minority, Asian ethnicities (BAME) have been systematically excluded from the education system (Dwyer, 2021).
According to an article published in Guardian only 1 fifth of UK Universities say they are decolonising (Guardian, 2020). The article goes further and discusses the widespread commitment amongst UK higher education institutes are rather low and even those being committed acknowledged this might be down to only few departments and few academics in those departments. These include University of East London only being engaged so far with a workshop in school of art and digital industries.According to the article of 128 universities being contacted 84 said thei are being committed to make their curriculum more diverse, 36 are offering staff briefing,34 are consulting BAME students on curriculum design, 24 are committed in decolonising their curriculum, 20 are taking no action, 11 are committed to decolonise (Guradian , 2020).
This stems back to the session we had on declonisation for our PGCERT with Jheni on mid-February 2022. The session was a 2 hourly workshop on the subject, to try encouraging us as tutors and educators in higher education sector (UAL) to get challenges ahead of educational institutes. Since UAL as an institute is very much at the forefront of emracing the issue inregrds to BAME and addressing the attainment gap in different student communities.
I would like to express my gratitude towards the positive impression this session made on me, the 2 hourly session was an interesting session which started off by having a playful call for data definition on the first hour of the session. The tutors encouraged us to think and describe the advantage and disadvantage of the data, the purpose of it and how it can inform us. Once students were broken in smaller groups we discussed on the data driven decision benefits.
Once the padlet exercise was over, the second hour got n interesting twist in terms of incorporating an informative spreadsheet on educational attainment for UAL through recent years and diminishing gap between white and BMAE students. The second exercise to challenge us to make the best of data…should we believe it? and they demonstrated some data from meeting attainment gap by UAL in the last 6 years. The data demonstrated the white home students and BMAE cohort have closer attainment gap.
The big question to ask if the data demonstrating the reality and enormity of situation?
Perhaps not as only looking into an attainment data and trying to tick the right boxes rather than engaging ourselves into institutionalised way of tackling decolonisation will only help us to demonstrate a small amount of work in a tactical manner. In other words:
“ One big fear for sensitive and important issues as such could be they could turn into a buzz-word without delivering their Purpose.” (Grange , 2019);
Solution? I hope I had the answer for such big issues facing today’s higher educational environment. This certainly not an easy task and although it has come to prominence in the last decades or so, certainly big discussions like this session as well as making decolonising a priority for educators will be of utmost importance.
Perhaps going forward we can look into possible solution of decolonising in Highr Education by incorporating the following:
- Get educated on decolonisation and understand the core meaning of it;
Perhaps by objectifying and clarifying the direction and its positive impact?
Redefining the term or reassuring that decolonising is not about omission of certain viewpoints but rather celebrating and broadening different ones;
- Reprioritise it in pedagogy approach through making sure it is important to push academic rigor, and everyone can benefit through it;
In a sense make sure we reprioritise this though change of university mission statements and make sure the policies change in accordance to deliver the new changes. Make sure this is a strategic priority to the institution and communicate this to top management through institutionalising it.
- Fund BAME research which is of utmost importance;
Perhaps through funding PhD studies or further School of black studies might be instrumental by adding new line of research and creating in this under researched area. In a sense by adding fresh blood to the existing research and funding those research will go hand in hand with prioritising the angle to incorporate the new line of studies and broaden the knowledge.
This will create opportunities for such scholars and enhance the knowledge creation.
- Tackle discrimination as making sure our BAME and international cohort wont feel silenced and ignored;
This should turn into a culture by perhaps first making everyone understand the damage of ignorance and not decolonising could do in our institute but also white staff to support and work with other colleagues towards a shared goal of decolonising. Only paying a lip service is simply damaging.
- Instituanilise decolonisation through creating departmental roles and engaging students to make the changes.
Perhaps by hiring people who have had experience in decolonising the Pedagogy. Not only support of further fresh blood is important to create a new line of knowledge in this area but also it is of utmost value to hire and recruit staff members who could execute the strategic vision and help institution to decolonise in a fundamental manner (Adopted from Liyange, 2020).
References:
Dwyer, K., (2021), “BAME, Beyound Final Report, , Accessed at 15 March 2022 : https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/documents/sppreview/20763541-6f82-4198-ae12-86cc0b3fa978
Le Grange, L. (2019). Different voices on the decolonization of the curriculum. In J. De Beer, J. (Ed.). The decolonisation of the curriculum project: The affordances of indigenous knowledge for self-directed learning (pp. 25-47). AOSIS.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2011). Thinking through the Decolonial Turn: Post-continental Interventions in Theory, Philosophy, and Critique—An Introduction. TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(2).
Gurdian newspaper (2020): Only a fifth of UK universities say they are ‘decolonising’ curriculum accessed 3rd march 2022: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/only-fifth-of-uk-universities-have-said-they-will-decolonise-curriculum
Liyanage, M., (2020) New report calls for the decolonisation of universities in order address a ‘silent crisis’ Accessed on 3rd march 2022: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/07/23/new-report-calls-for-decolonisation-of-universities-in-order-address-the-silent-crisis-in-universities/
Image Reference :
Bahmbara, G., (2018), “To decolonise the University is to Democratise the University”., Times Higher education, Accessed at 15 March 2022: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/decolonise-university-democratise-university