Decolonising the Education Curriculum

 

What is it?

Our curriculum is built to provide the necessary topics that we deem is important to teach to the youth of our society. However, decolonising  the curriculum is an issue that has been prominent in the education sector over some years. 

Over the years this realisation that the curriculum teaches from Eurocentric and postcolonial outlook has highlighted areas where we must make a change. One concern has been mentioned in this Guardian article as it refers to a lack of representation in students' reading list. This has led to creation of a narrow outlook within the curriculum wherein white hetero male authors implicitly favoured over minority ethnic writers. In result of this, it has introduced a systematic divide to the material available and puts the excellent work of BAME authors into the shadows. Evidently, BAME students must be able to see themselves reflected in the curriculum in order to see themselves as creators of knowledge. This is not to say we cancel in teaching the works of those from a white male background. For instance, the Guardian highlighted how John Locke invested in the slave-trading Royal African Company and co-authored the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which enshrined chattel slavery. 

 

This campaign is not set out to destroy the work that has been curated into creating our curriculum but instead looking to improve the works and address the dire concern BAME students/scholars/professors have developed due to the racism and colonialism that have shaped our past and our present. 

Why is it a problem?

The birth of a colonial curriculum is in other words a birth of an inaccurate curriculum. One that does not represent its students or academics. By striving to create an inclusive curriculum we must provide truthful knowledge to those it will cater to instead of making the curriculum less appealing. A staff development forum page raises the point that we must make a curriculum that allows students to relate to it as well as engage with in regards to academic material and assessments, but if we only teach the works of white men, we’ll end up marginalising society even further due to these unaddressed feelings of exclusion that have detrimentally impacted not only BAME people but all people who learn under an oppressive and fundamentally racist education system. 

 To achieve this goal, there’s a number of ways to see this enabled. Firstly, we should  create an accessible curriculum. This relates to our previous mentions in which we can tackle the problem of having an inaccurate curriculum by creating a space for BAME authors' works to be incorporated into the educational canon. Additionally, ensuring that students are able to see themselves and their culture represented in the curriculum is also key to achieving a self-respecting and academically independent mindset which will in turn bolster an inclusive curriculum. Additionally, a prominent problem we’ve come across whilst living in the western world is the lack of focus of issues that occur in other parts of the world and the enrichment of culture that is there to be shared. Instead, we must strive to equip students with the skills to be able to work positively in this diverse world.

Implementation

Some academics have already taken measures into meeting certain aims that’ll help decolonise education especially in the technology sector. 

Examples:

• Research Material and Collecting information to diversify the undergraduate science curriculum
• Creating collaborations of work between scientists and historians
• Advocate for a cultural shift towards the STEM curriculum that embraces an interconnected global view of sciences/maths (not just a eurocentric one) and includes a diverse range of people and historical context alongside the necessary technical content.
• Broaden student learning in undergraduate science courses to have a better understanding of the global historical and social context to scientific research; how the knowledge was gathered