Decoloniality, language and student voice must shape curriculum change, senior academics say
Curriculum transformation cannot be reduced to policy compliance, reporting templates or sector-wide checklists. It demands honest confrontation with power, politics, teaching and learning practices, and it must be led from the ground up.
This theme surfaced from inputs by Professors Lesley Le Grange, Nokuthula Hlabangane, Renuka Vithal, and Monwabisi Ralarala, along with researcher, Dr Marcina Singh, in their response to the recently launched Universities South Africa (USAf) and Council on Higher Education (CHE) baseline study on curriculum transformation.
At the official launch of this study report on 10 June outside Johannesburg, the respondents reflected on the study findings and the challenges it raised — ahead of a stakeholder consultation workshop to inform the Higher Education Practice Standards (HEPS) in support of the implementation of the study findings. Their input highlighted the tension between institutional performance and authentic transformation, and criticised the superficiality and structural rigidity of current approaches to curriculum transformation.
Professor Lesley Le Grange (left), a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University, commended the research team for a comprehensive report, saying that despite relying on self-evaluation reports (SERs) and self-reported data, they managed to extract meaningful insights. He also acknowledged the limitations of the data, saying that it reflected the voices of a specific segment of the higher education community.
Professor Le Grange highlighted that universities’ curriculum transformation efforts often remain superficial because transformation, in its entirety, has been shallow. “If higher education transformation is viewed superficially, and it’s shallow, then of course, that will play out in curriculum transformation,” he said.
He noted that while some institutions and scholars were doing serious work in response to movements such as decolonisation, Africanisation and gender justice, these efforts were uneven across the sector. He cautioned against shallow forms of transformation that focus on access, demographics, or funding, saying there’s a distinction between shallow and substantive transformation “where we see the transformation of the soul of the university evident in DNA change”.
“There seems to be a very superficial understanding of curriculum transformation and the conceptual labour that has not been done to connect it to other movements and grammars of change, such as decolonisation, Africanisation, social justice movements, anti-racism, gender inclusivity etc. So, that ongoing work is important and it must be done. To me, openness and a commitment to higher education transformation and to curriculum transformation are more important.”
Conformity, performance and the loss of academic agency
Professor Nokuthula Hlabangane (above), an Associate Professor at UNISA’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, also challenged what she described as the performative nature of current conversations on curriculum transformation and decoloniality. “I think decoloniality was meant to be something we all buy into, wherever we are situated in the academy, because we understand the violence ingrained in it.”
“When we confront the question of decoloniality through this report, I get the sense of people performing. They’ve shown up, but they are screaming and screeching, perhaps because the emphasis is on something external to what [Philosopher, Frantz Fanon] might call their most spontaneous truths. There are no spontaneous truths in how the academy has transformed. And yes, I want to posit that the academy has transformed. The jury is out on whether it has been for better or for worse.”
Professor Hlabangane also criticised institutions’ “wholesale” adoption of corporate systems, saying the push to impose rigid structures and performance algorithms has stripped higher education of its natural rhythm. As a result, she said, many academics have “quietly divested because they no longer feel that they are seen, they no longer feel that they are heard, they are only invited to conform.”
She also critiqued the literature cited in the report as too benign and not aligned to the radical demands of student protests, particularly during #FeesMustFall. “It doesn’t quite allow us to go to the nub of the matter that students raised in 2015-2016 when they said: in fact, we cannot breathe.”
Professor Renuka Vithal (left), the Deputy Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning at the University of Fort Hare, who joined the launch virtually as a respondent, said the report provides a solid institutional and sector-wide overview of curriculum transformation. “I think what this study very successfully does is to map out just how… challenging curriculum transformation is. It also demonstrates that curriculum transformation is a very slippery concept.”
She emphasised the importance of clearly defining what is meant by “curriculum” and “transformation,” saying this was central to understanding the study’s findings, particularly because both concepts are not just educational but also inherently political. Professor Vithal said, at its core, a curriculum is always a selection from the vast universe of knowledge, shaped by decisions about what is included, excluded and prioritised.
“I don’t know whether we really can come to a shared understanding — and the study shows that. Maybe that’s to be expected, given our different histories and identities and all of that. Transformation for a university like the University of Fort Hare means something very different from transformation for, let’s say, Stellenbosch University, or UCT. So I don’t know to what extent we can come to a shared understanding where we can say, this is what we mean.”
Professor Monwabisi Ralarala (right), Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic at the University of the Western Cape, argued that debates on curriculum transformation, cultural reform and decoloniality cannot be meaningful unless the issue of language is placed at the centre. “If we agree, and I think we should, that our perception of reality is mediated through language, then it follows that if our command of a particular language, our knowledge and understanding of it, is poor, our conceptual understanding of the world around us will also be poor.”
He stressed that students must be meaningfully involved in transformation, and that their knowledge, values and lived experiences should be recognised as central to that process.
Defining curriculum, embracing plurality
Dr Marcina Singh (left), a Research Associate in the Faculty of Humanities at UJ, who joined the proceedings virtually, pointed out that reporting in higher education is shaped by several imperatives. One is the technical aspect, where reports are expected to meet compliance requirements, often resulting in a mismatch between what is asked and what is meaningful. Another is the institutional process itself, which requires multiple layers of approval and editing. By the time a self-evaluation report reaches final submission, she argued, its original intent is often diluted.
Dr Singh highlighted the fact that reports cannot be isolated from broader dynamics in the higher education sector, particularly funding, saying that the sources of institutional funding can shape how transformation is framed. “You have to appease your funders, especially in this time of austerity. So there’s also a political climate which needs to be satisfied and institutions cannot alienate themselves from the political economy.”
She concluded by asking whether the higher education sector needs a shared, homogenous understanding of curriculum transformation, considering that institutions have varied histories and contexts. “Do we all have to have the same idea, the same definition of what curriculum transformation is?”
“Can it not be a lot of things at the same time? Can we not agree on that, as opposed to everybody trying to agree on the same thing or trying to find a common definition? Our universities are different, our histories are different, and our views are different. So, to try and homogenise such a big thing… I think that’s the question we should ask ourselves.”
Nontobeko Mtshali is a contracted writer for Universities South Africa.
