Liberating Education - Preface (page v-xxv)

Preface Liberating Education Vuyisile Msila Context The complex discourses of decolonising education in Africa continue in as many conscientious citizens still lay their hopes on the doors of educational institutions to solve the ills of the African societies. Since the advent of colonisation, African education has been in search of relevance and meaning even though colonial damage has grown immensely over decades; this makes it challenging to obliterate colonialism. With the epistemic violence, that has been a sine qua non of colonial and apartheid education – African education was always accompanied by deAfricanisation, deculturalisation, dehumanisation and distortions to misrepresent the truth. All these are concepts discussed in a number of ways in this volume. To redress many anomalies that came up because of colonisation, progressive educators speak of a dialogic education to confront cognitive injustice in learning sites. In his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire (1970) emphasises the need for education to be a dialogue rather than follow a banking model or approach where teachers’ sole viewpoint is fact. Freire’s dialogic teaching reduces learner withdrawal and teacher talk in the classroom; dialogue calls for a teacher’s skill of intervention and tact of restraint “so that the verbal density of a trained intellectual does not silence the verbal styles of unscholastic students” (Shor, 1987:23). Shih (2018) explicates the premise of Freire’s dialogue under a few themes that include; (i) each person having the right to speak, (ii) the fact that dialogue cannot be an act of one person, (iii) the idea that dialogue is not hostile and polemical argument, (iv) humility, (v) love, (vi) hope, critical thinking, and (vii) faith. The search for a decolonised system of education is a search for critical education that is not only dialogic but relevant to the entire continent of Africa as well. Various chapters in this book demonstrate revolutionary forms of introducing decolonised models that should transform traditional learning sites that use the West as the sole benchmark for knowledge generation. Additionally, decolonised education is opposed to the unbending methodological paradigms of traditional learning sites that use the West as the exclusive vessel for knowledge or the centre. Decolonised systems seek to decentre the Western knowledges without marginalising them. In his book, Moving the Centre, Ngugi Wa Thiongo (1993) argues a need to move the centre in two ways – between nations as well as within nations. Wa Thiongo maintains that this is the basis of liberating world cultures from aspects such as class, race, and gender. Moving the centre between nations implies that the centre will be moved from its assumed position in the West to a multiplicity of spheres in all the cultures of the world. Furthermore, moving the centre within nation means moving away from all minority groupings to a centre situated among the working-class people and where equality is supreme. Teacher education needs to be conscious of the needs of today’s classrooms to be able to experiment with anti-method pedagogy that decolonises knowledge and de-Europeanise the vision of education, as we know it. This volume of essays challenges us to rethink thinking behind teaching as well as learning and explicate what is meant by a decolonised system of education and which knowledges are relevant. On the subject of rethinking knowledge, NdlovuGatsheni (2018:24) argues: Rethinking thinking is fundamentally a decolonial move that requires the cultivation of a decolonial attitude in knowledge production. It is informed by a strong conviction that all human beings are not only born into a knowledge system but are legitimate knowers and producers of legitimate knowledge. Rethinking thinking is also a painstaking decolonial process of ‘learning to unlearn in order to re-learn’ … Eurocentric and apartheid education have necessitated that teacher education and schools should constantly and consciously address the miseducation and dehumanisation aspects of education in the past as well as in the present. Thomas (1998:84) cites Mazrui (1967) who contends that African and third world people ought to be co-workers in the revival of culture: “To escape death and isolation, and to nurture the latent African genius”. African societies have to pose several questions when it comes to the goals of education in post-colonial Africa. Among these are the questions on language, on attainment of a national spirit, on magnification of African cultures and on education that acknowledges the noble idea of an African Renaissance.” As a Change Management practitioner at the University of South Africa from 2017 to 2020, I have come across several colleagues in conferences from a few institutions of higher learning where decolonisation has been a subject of discussion. I have observed two extremes in the various debates as South African institutions endeavour to manage transformation and decolonisation paths. On the one hand, are pedantic demagogues who refuse to move until concepts are clarified – many critics have said that academics easily fall into this trap. This group is meticulous about explication of terms and delineation of processes in higher education transformation. The explication of terms is very vital, for we cannot continue with debates without a common understanding. However, this demand can be a delaying mechanism to derail transformation and decolonisation process as we continue an unending intellectual exercise of semantics while we experience inertia and un-transforming environments. On the other extreme are those who are impatient about the sluggish transformation and decolonisation of education institutions. The latter group maintains that the long-winded development of theory is stalling the process of change hence we need to see the actual changes effected at all education institutions. However, ideally, we should demand a middle ground where there is an understanding of theory for practice. No one can develop any curriculum models without the necessary theory. Kwame Nkrumah spoke of the need to apply the weapon of theory when he stated, “Action without thought is empty. Thought without action is blind”. Nkrumah postulated this maxim as he articulated his consciencism philosophy, pointing out that in the process of developing decolonisation thinkers, we need both thinkers and implementers, the doers (Nkrumah, 1969). The creation and sustenance of responsive campuses for example, need thought as we redesign and reincarnate the higher education institutions, thus enamouring Africa’s future. Children need schools that would prepare them for the building of their communities and their country in an age when Africa is faced with insurmountable challenges. The chapters in this book focus on the challenges facing teacher education programmes, teachers, learners and schools at a time of volatile changes. The book examines how we may need to think about redesigning teaching in basic education, adult education and in institutions of higher learning as we contemplate decolonisation of knowledge. In this preface, I explore a few sub-topics, which include the development of teaching in Africa. Secondly, the focus is on why enacting cultural decolonisation can transform institutional cultures embedded in education institutions. Finally, the focus is on the complexity of decolonising institutions and what constitutes this process. Among other factors, there is much need to examine teacher education programmes whenever people discuss decolonisation and transformation in education. Developing Teaching in Africa: What about Teacher Education? Stokes (1997:217) argues that teacher education needs to be consistent with a “progressive, democratic vision” and that teachers should ensure that in their classrooms, they constantly examine their cultural identities as they enhance critical consciousness among learners. Stokes (1997:217) adds: A critical teacher education should problematize the lived experience of children, women, and men throughout this society, and simultaneous positions of domination and subordination – contradictory experiences of oppression and complicity with privilege. At the intersections of race, class, and gender, each participates in multiple positions of power and powerlessness. Decolonising teacher education is an imperative step towards the attainment of the objectives of a decolonised system of education. Teachers should be part of rethinking the curriculum and ensuring that it will be meaningful to the lives of all learners in their classrooms. Furthermore, decolonisation requires teachers who would be able to educate themselves about domination and subordination especially if they are to be able to avoid the reproduction of present conditions (Stokes, 1997). Teachers should also be able to draw a balance between theory and practice. Therefore, when we speak about Ubuntu in the classroom, what do we mean? What do we mean when we speak of education as a political act? What does it mean to reframe the pedagogical practices? Why should educators enhance community links with their classrooms? These and many other questions are key when we examine the decolonisation of teacher education in Africa. Teachers need to constantly selfreflect as they question their own identities, posing questions as to what they are teaching and why they are teaching it. Furthermore, how the content is taught is very vital for decolonisation of knowledge is not about transforming content only, but about pedagogy itself – the way teachers teach and learners learn matter. Teachers should no longer be passive but must ask questions about the knowledge they facilitate in the classroom at all times. Some of the questions to pose continuously are: o Whose knowledge am I teaching? o How would it change the colonial or traditional practices? o How will the curriculum benefit my learners and me? o Does the curriculum have an effect on power relations and culture? o What is my role in curriculum planning? Numerous other pertinent questions that can be posed are not answered in this preface but in the various chapters in this book. We need active teachers who are activists for transformation and leaders in new pedagogical practices that embrace democracy, social justice and cognitive justice. It is crucial for teachers to use education in helping learners understand the links between education and the learners’ communities. The idea of relevant education can never be over emphasised, and it is important for education to enable learners to establish their own identities. It is also of utmost importance for teachers to see education as embracing all rather than alienating – constant revision of content is central here. The current education system presents challenges for teachers to change what they teach and how they teach, especially when one understands how many teachers were taught as learners, then as teachers in initial teacher education programmes. Many may struggle to integrate indigenous and Western knowledges. In fact, Heleta (2016) argues that there is a need to transform the Eurocentric curriculum that bolsters Western dominance and white privilege. I am certain that teacher education programmes, teachers and most importantly teacher unions can all play a vital role in this regard. The union is a critical stakeholder and needs to be in the forefront of education transformation with other stakeholders. (South) Africa must tackle and dismantle the epistemic violence and hegemony of Eurocentrism, completely rethink, reframe and reconstruct the curriculum and place South Africa, Southern Africa and Africa at the centre of teaching, learning and research. Heleta, 2016:1 Teachers need to be proactive and as they examine their practice and posing essential questions about their pedagogical practices. They ought to understand the humanising aspect of progressive education as well as its conscientising role. Paulo Freire (1970) used both these concepts to illustrate the imperatives of liberating education. Yet, transformative teaching must also work with ways of transforming culture. Culture Impact on Knowledge At the centre of colonial and apartheid education is culture, which has always been manipulated to reflect the empire or die volk’s might. The British were always clear about their intentions hidden in education whilst apartheid education was very open about education’s intentions and that was to create children who would reinforce the master-servant relationship (Kallaway, 1988). Decolonisation ought to play a huge role in examining, understanding and transforming the culture reflected by African education. In understanding the basic tenets of decolonisation, cultural decolonisation should help demystify our quest for a liberating education. Relevant pedagogy and meaningful learning will be guided by cultural decolonisation. Colonial and apartheid education has denigrated African cultures over the years whilst demeaning indigenous knowledges. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2018) writes about ways in which colonisation led to culturecides, historicides, linguicides and epistemicides: “Africa is one of those epistemic sites that experienced not only colonial genocides but also ‘theft of history’ (see Goody, 2006), epistemicides (killing of indigenous people’s knowledges) and linguicides (killing of indigenous people’s languages)” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018:3). In addition, culturecides refer to the killing of the indigenous peoples’ cultural practices and historicides, which is the killing of the indigenous peoples’ history. Cultural decolonisation changes thinking and enhances the belief in African cultures and identities rather than cultural dominance of Europe. Cultural decolonisation in education will also help rehumanise those who were dispossessed and oppressed. Decolonised scholarship, curriculum and teaching will be able to magnify this role of culture in the classroom. The language debates have become very critical in the cultural decolonisation debates. As people rebuild education, institutions need to plan their cultural reconstruction. New cultures need to inform scholarship, curriculum as well as ways of teaching. As pointed out above, generally, the current university in Africa is based on culture and values of Western education. Nkrumah perceived African culture as the basis of African-centred education and was despondent to see the University of Ghana a resemblance of Oxford and Cambridge (Botwe-Asamoah, 2005). Furthermore, BotweAsamoah (2005) argues that Nkrumah maintained that an African university could not serve the society unless it is rooted in the indigenous social structures and cultural institutions. The experiences of the African people mattered to Nkrumah and he struggled because when he emphasised Africanisation of education and claimed that English should no longer be a determinant for promotion in secondary school, he was accused of lowering the education standards. It is however striking that Nkrumah’s observation in 1960 Ghana could be the truth in numerous African education institutions six decades later. The struggles that Nkrumah observed were also experienced by his contemporaries such as Julius Nyerere. Nyerere (1970:130) highlighted the need for a relevant Africa focused Tanzanian education when he stated in October 1961: We are in the process of building up a Tanganyika nation. Valuable as is the contribution which overseas education can give us, in the end, is we are to build up a sturdy sense of nationhood; we must nurture our own educated citizens. Our young men and women must have an Africaorientated education. That is an education, which is not only given in Africa but also directed at meeting the present needs of Africa. The application of education to suit the local circumstances is crucial to Africa and that is why Nyerere talks about education meeting the needs of the African continent. Epistemic violence means that colonial and apartheid education brought education that alienated the African from his/her environment. When we talk of epistemic violence, we refer to the cultural hegemony that dominated over the decades of colonial and apartheid domination. The colonial invasion was a conscious reproduction of the imperial culture upon students as we magnified the Western culture in all aspects of education institutions. We cannot forget the fact that the universities in Africa were built to nurture new colonisers. Much of the epistemic deafness we find today among academics and society is due to the internalisation of the culture of domination that is rooted in our institutions. Today, the cynicism we witness in the society is mainly due to internalised aspects of Western culture. It is because of our beliefs in Western science and Western scholarship that we tend to neglect the local as we frequently underscore globalisation, perceiving the decolonial project an antithesis of progress. I believe that the first priority for the decolonisation of knowledge is cultural decolonisation. Over the past decade, decolonisation has filled our society’s agenda. Various role players have seen it necessary to search for answers of how we can reshape the African society. This is not new although the recent student upheavals in South Africa in the form of Fallist Movements have made many to reopen the debate and investigate the questions around decolonisation and Africanisation of knowledge. The university has been entangled in this on-going debate about a decolonised society. Green (1998) points out that post-apartheid South Africa needs to restructure its entire education system to meet the needs of the previously excluded and drastically under-educated majority. A new form of academic culture is also needed to build new and meaningful norms for creating fecund basis for a decolonised system. Shared governance is necessary in institutions – bring together various academic committees to make necessary decisions in transforming what happens in lecture halls. Empowered faculty will be able to build relevant curricula that address how education should be. However, the dilemma for institutional leaders this time is serving the interest of all role players. Leadership in higher education institutions in South Africa has shifted, being less about power and more about comprehending the ambiguity that binds higher education institutions. In fact, the current South African higher education institution has become more complex and many are not simply hierarchical structures. Madeleine Green (1997:46) argues: Because organisations are complex webs of seemingly chaotic interrelationships, patterns and connections can be discerned only over long periods. Organisations are networks of people and problems; webs of culture, habits, myths, and formal and informal authority. The predominant image is one of overlapping circles rather than a pyramid. Furthermore, organisations (including institutions of higher education) are part of a complex network of other institutions and entities: depending on the country, they may include ministries, other government agencies, intermediary bodies and voluntary organisations. Because universities have multiple centres of power, they need meticulous, progressive leaders to lead the decolonisation project. Leaders need to spread a shared agenda as the institutions transform its operations. Higher education leaders need to understand the super-complexity of the institutions of higher learning to be able to shape new cultures. It takes wise leaders to lead the process of change. Others argue that even when academic leaders are not change agents, higher education can change without strong leadership because some leaders consciously or unconsciously maintain the status quo. Irresistible pressure from inside and outside may change the institution. However, it is better to have a guided change that will not be traumatic and messy. There is no adequate theorisation on the decolonisation of schools and other basic education institutions in South Africa. This leaves a gap in the debates for transformation of higher education institutions. We cannot discuss decolonisation at higher education institutions without any reference to basic education otherwise many initiatives to transform education will falter. With the high failure rate and low levels of literacy and numeracy in a country like South Africa, experts need to revisit research in language of teaching and ways in which to decolonise the curriculum including learning areas such as mathematics, natural sciences and technology education. Decolonisation goes a step further to just focusing on pass percentage; it examines and transforms the content of education. How Do We Decolonise? Decolonisation will not happen without a huge necessary disruption. Without this disruption, we will always find ourselves where we have been over the years. The problem we have today in stalling education transformation is created by the fact that we are not ready to confront the meaningful overhaul of education. In seeking education for liberation, there is no way we can avoid education as well as revolutionary consciousness. Revolutionary consciousness is linked to critical consciousness that people such as Paulo Freire espoused. Education should challenge the status quo and enable the people to take charge of their lives. The call for a decolonised education is to challenge the status quo as the way we teach children is gradually transformed. Education should be conscious raising in the context of decolonisation both the teacher and the learner should understand the role of African epistemologies in the process. It is after the attainment of this critical consciousness that we can be able to find and pursue the role of social justice education. In pursuing the principles of social justice, the youth should drive the society’s agenda for revolutionary education. For many families, education has never addressed the consequences of oppression hence some may talk about the need for a relevant socially just education. Many young people still ought to see education as that which encompasses a humanising pedagogy and a liberating practice. Given our background in South Africa, we should have thought more about the role of education in responding to social ills. In Africa, we need education that would respond to not only to poverty but also to various other ills left by colonialism. Socially just education should be compulsory for all classrooms and classrooms should reflect a free society. President Zuma addressed the Pan African Youth Congress on 28 November 2014. In his address, he acknowledged that, although there are African countries that have made some progress in socio-economic development, the majority of African youth still face unemployment, underemployment, inadequate access to education, health care, and housing. Furthermore, Zuma added: Agenda 2063 is premised on Pan-Africanism and the rebirth of the African Continent. It promotes restoration of values of human solidarity, Ubuntu, self-pride, self-determination, non-sexism, non-tribalism and the celebration of our diversity. Youth programmes must consider these values both in content and in form. You must individually and collectively espouse these values in your conduct in order to propel the African continent onto a higher development trajectory. This is even more important because you, the African youth, represent the future of Africa. Donaldo Macedo (1993) portrays the Pedagogy of Big Lies, in which he explains what schools do; that is to promote a pedagogy that propagates the inability to think critically. This is literacy for stupidification; stupidification results to education for domestication. Macedo (2000) (in Chomsky) writes about teaching tasks which lead to dumbness; where teachers treat learners as tabula rasas. The latter is an education alienated from the learners’ realities. Colonial and apartheid education entrenched this kind of education, a pedagogy of lies where education was manipulated by colonial governments. Furthermore, Macedo (1993) argues that we all need an education system that conscientises because it will be conscientisation that will be an antidote to education for barbarism as Tabata (1980) referred to apartheid and colonial education. We need to ask ourselves a perennial question of how we can ensure that education serves the historically disadvantaged, and how can it conscientise perpetually, thus ensuring that learners become lifelong learners who are critical in their approach to living. Learners who are made to internalise big lies in education are always inward looking for they are made to believe that there is only one rigid reality. Education based on big lies incarcerates instead of liberating the mind, it obscures instead of unmasking knowledge. When people use concepts such as African Renaissance, one sees their hope in bringing meaningful education that heralds new ideas and intellectual revival especially among young people. President Thabo Mbeki maintained that real African Renaissance would be attained when there is conscious move to end greed, dehumanising poverty, obscene opulence and corruption, all factors which give rise to coups d’état and instability (Mbeki, 1998). Mbeki pointed out that African Renaissance is the hope of a decolonised Africa. This means that decolonisation gives Africa a face, a vision and hope. The progress of the country’s success should start with the transformation in education. The youth in Africa will change their societies through different forms of education. Education needs to disengage with its colonial and apartheid past. In his inauguration as Chancellor of the University of South Africa, Mbeki (2017) underscored the need for relevant, emancipatory curriculum. To this end, we cannot disregard the Indigenous Knowledge Systems, which will be critical inembedding social justice in education. For several decades, education in Africa tended to overlook the traditional experiences that can make the learners to be adept in life. A socially just education from schools can be the basis, a foundation of education that demonstrates Africa’s renewal for youth development and the future. The call for a decolonised system is synonymous to the call for a rehumanising education that caters for the local African contexts. As we talk of decolonisation, we require an education revolution that would change schools. These schools would enhance the African identity Eskia Mphahlele (1974) talked about. Our schools for example, need to learn to speak the indigenous languages. Cheik Anta Diop (2000) argued that African Renaissance could be attained through the African indigenous languages. This is an idea that is supported by Wiredu (1987) who writes about the need to develop the African indigenous languages. He goes on to point out that, the weakness of African philosophies is that they are communicated in colonial languages. The latter weakens their cause and commitment. Ali Mazrui (1980) also examines the technological superiority of Europe and explicates how English and French were in the forefront in the development of black political thought. Like Wa Thiongo and several other African thinkers, the colonial languages marginalised the indigenous cultures as they entrenched colonialism. In Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa, the Africans’ education shunted the Africans away from their identities and cultures. In addition, in seeking to be global the African is moving away from these swayed by Western hegemony and there is a tendency for education to be formulated by experts who are captives of the Western knowledges. Africa should also be the centre; it should also be the point of reference in Africa. The Africans need to master the local, the regional the Continental before they can gain control of the world. Thomas (1998:83), writing about Ali Mazrui contends: In order to combat Western cultural hegemony and the Third World’s growing cultural dependency, he makes a strong case for regional autonomy. He postulates that Africans […] have as much to offer to world culture and global peace as did their English, French or Italian counterparts. On this point, Mazrui (2005) reaffirms the clarion call by Du Bois for African and Third World peoples to become co-workers in the kingdom of culture; to escape death and isolation, and to nurture the latent African genius. Our schools can create a planetary system by employing a variety of knowledges. It is the argument of several chapters in this book that we need an Africa that uses a variety of knowledges as it decentres the exclusive use of Western epistemologies. This implies that there should be epistemic justice that would combat epistemic violence of yore as knowledges compete on an equal pedestal without using the West only as a measure of knowledges. However, decolonisation needs disruption, for without an overhaul, we cannot speak of true decolonisation. As we disrupt the education, system we need to answer the question of relevance, for decolonisation of knowledge without bringing in the debate of relevance is futile. We should be able to answer the questions of what we do, how we do it and when we do it. Up to now for example, Africanisation has been more of a political project where we have looked at street name changes and re-examination of the colonial and apartheid symbols. We need a system of education that would embrace the following four factors rooted in conscientisation for a decolonised system: 1. Critical pedagogy refers to a progressive philosophy of teaching that focuses on contexts, histories and power relations. 2. Indigenisation refers to bringing the marginalised indigenous cultures, histories and people to the centre. 3. Relearning is about the conscious effort to disengage with colonisation and learn the implications of decolonisation. It goes with unlearning the past as part of the decolonising process. 4. Disruption calls for acknowledging the urgency of transformation. It seeks the upheaval of the status quo to lead to social justice and cognitive justice. Each of these needs to talk to the idea of relevance and empowerment of the learners and teachers. We do not want to continue producing learners who have a cognitive dissonance. We need to continue asking ourselves as to what it means to be educated. Are learners who do not know themselves educated? Education in Africa should not be congruent to exclusive Western knowledge. How do we achieve relevant education that would eschew cognitive dissonance? We need a system where the learners start with their own before they expand their knowledge. This is the idea that Wa Thiongo (1993) discusses that a decolonised education starts with own languages before one can use other languages and knowledges to enrich one. In one of his most recent works, Ngugi Wa Thiongo (2014) writes about globalectics – an area that embraces interconnectedness and equality. This concept refers to a way of thinking and relating to the world, particularly in the current era of globalism and globalisation. Furthermore, Wa Thiongo opines about the ideal of building a better understanding of humanity between the global North and South – he explores a question of how we should ensure that the world has a meeting point. Many African thinkers have expressed this in several ways. Mwesirige (nd) cites Mazrui who contends that there are five strategies of taming Western-oriented imperialism disguised as globalisation and he referred to globalisation as simply villagisation of the globe. The five strategies are indigenisation, domestication, diversification, horizontal interpenetration and vertical counter-penetration. The African institutions of learning should respond to these in a move to better Africa. A decolonised curriculum encompasses a number of critical strategies and these may include; re-education of faculty/staff, relooking at prescribed works, privileging African ways of knowing as well as bias towards African pedagogies e.g. language, folktales, praise poetry, African worldviews. Furthermore, decolonisation needs to come with rethinking of culture, relooking at systems and strong leading of relevant change. We need to examine models past and present, successful and not to explore what we can glean from such. However, there are many challenges on the path towards decolonisation of education. One of the most critical challenge when it comes to institutions of learning and decolonisation is preparing teaching staff to unlearn knowledges that they might have embraced as unbending truth. True decolonisation needs solid plan and vision and there are several lessons South Africans can learn from the experiences of other African states. As intimated above, the decolonisation project needs to seriously explore the rethinking of teacher education. In fact, without visionary teachers at higher education institutions and in schools, there can be no renewal of education and African education’s future will continue to be blurry. As attempts are made to build responsive campuses, the initiatives will come to naught without empowered facilitators who understand their role in decolonising education. There are serious concerns though; that in institutions that purport transformation, faculty is still made up of individuals who are not ready to change or are not even keen to change. We also know the disastrous results of Curriculum 2005 in South Africa, which tended to deskill the first group of post-apartheid teachers. Amongst the pitfalls of this ambitious system was that teachers were not given time to understand and embrace this with understanding. On the eve of introducing a decolonised system in schools, we need educators who will not only understand decolonisation but also believe in it. Conscientious teachers will have to look at history and understand how African knowledges were severed to be able to remember them with a decolonised, relevant system. This collection of chapters focuses on three vital aspects; developing ways of knowing, ways of teaching and ways of learning en route to decolonising education. This volume’s title is Developing Teaching and Learning in Africa, and it underscores the equal importance of both learning and teaching in decolonising learning sites. The Education transformation is futile if we enhance one without deepening the other. Education institutions that overhaul the curriculum and scholarship without inspiring teaching and learning are unlikely to attain successful transformation. In addition, what this book wants to achieve is to heighten the need to debate practical alternatives on the path towards the decolonisation of knowledge. The book is divided into three sections, Basic Education, Higher Education and New Epistemologies and Society. In the first chapter, Basic Education and Decolonisation in South Africa, Msila focuses on how and why basic education in South Africa needs to be decolonised. Moving from roots of mission education and apartheid education the discussion explicates the reasons for moving the learners and their teachers away from the barbarism inherent in past education systems. Msila acknowledges the varied meanings of a decolonised system; some have referred to decolonised systems of education as forms of service-learning, implying that true decolonisation will integrate meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience. Others see the huge responsibility of decolonisation as negation to epistemic violence and colonial or Western knowledge domination in education. Although the society has haggled in defining the concepts, there have been several instances where consensus has been achieved. In concluding the chapter, Msila looks at Eskia Mphahlele’s work at Funda Centre in Soweto and arguably his work here was the first breakthrough as to how people could practically decolonise education in South Africa. Bhuda and Pudi’s second chapter deals with the integration of ethnomathematics into school curriculum. The chapter, Indigenising Mathematics in Schools: Why Ethnomathematics Matters examines how mathematics has been utilised over decades in Africa as part of everyday life. However, the Western knowledges may not recognise the existence of mathematics in African cultures hence like many other areas there might have been the marginalisation of mathematics used by traditional societies. The authors claim that it is essential to use diverse ethnomathematical ideas in order to construct a curriculum that accommodates African indigenous learners of diverse cultures. Thus, teachers as agents of change ought to embrace and implement this policy by contextualising mathematics learning to the learners’ cultural ways of life, learning, being and doing. In their argument, they demonstrate that there are contradictions and paradoxes in ethnomathematics although the school systems have to accommodate ethnomathematics. In South Africa, there are current reforms in mathematics education, which emphasise the need to empower learners mathematically, socially, and epistemologically. Chapter 3, Decolonising Science: Challenging the South African Classroom through Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Ramadikela, Pudi and Mokiwa explore debates on ways in which Indigenous Knowledge Systems can enhance science classrooms. They argue that Western knowledges have always dominated in science classrooms because generally few people have really argued for indigenous knowledge systems’ usefulness in these classrooms. The authors argue that it would be improper for African learning sites to exclude either Western Science or ‘African’ science supported by Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Progressive, conscientious educators who promote social justice and critical pedagogy among their learners will bring the two together for the benefit of all learners. Opoku and J-F in chapter 4 also pose critical questions in the chapter entitled, Inclusive Education Without Resources, among these questions are whether inclusive education can provide equal opportunity to students with disabilities to access education at all levels of schooling without resources. These authors maintain that the question is relevant to sub-Saharan African countries because they have numerous challenges, which range from lack of funds to shortages in facilities and resources. These counties have few special schools. The chapter highlights various deficient processes and practices utilised in Sub-Saharan Africa in implementing Inclusive Education. Ntombela’s The Dislocated Rural Student: Calls for Decolonisation (chapter 5) focuses on the South African students’ struggles for a decolonised education in 2015 and 2016. However, the author also looks at how these struggles have been usurped by other role players as the students are relegated towards the back. Ntombela explores how this has happened. Furthermore, the chapter interrogates the multiplicity of academically colonised subjects. It does so by profiling a typical student in a ‘rural’ university and shows how the university dubbed ‘rural’ dislocates such a student by way of appealing to universal discourses of academia. Although the notion of a rural university appears straightforward when viewed from geographical location, there are nuances that disturb such a label. It remains, nonetheless, that geographical location all by itself cannot absolutely measure the state of rurality of a university; students on the contrary, even though they may not absolutely take the label of rural, have among them those whose lineages and rootedness is rural. These lineages can be linguistically and rhetorically explained. The dominant Western thought continues to view Africa as an expanse of rural landscape whose preservation is for the gaze of the inquisitive tourist. Therefore, the reconstruction of rurality is hardly for the betterment and humanisation of rural residents than a curious traveller enticement move meant to commodify the people and their lived experiences. Ntombela argues here that decolonisation is essential for students in institutions, especially those located in rural communities. In chapter 6 Humanising and Decolonising Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) in South Africa, Lalendle, Msila and Matlabe examine the role of a decolonised adult education in South Africa. They trace the history of adult education in South Africa from its inception to the present and explore how this has evolved over the decades. These authors apply Paulo Freire’s theory of critical pedagogy as they examine the gaps in the current models of adult education. Bulti in chapter 7, Fostering Collective Teacher Efficacy Through Values-Based and Ubuntu Inspired Leadesrhip:Implications for Decolonisation, skilfully demonstrates in practice how decolonisation can utilise both Western and African knowledges in running excellent institutions. He reveals values that are critical for building Collective Teacher Efficacy in well run schools. The discussion demonstrates the importance of values such as servant leadership, integrity, humility, selflessness, compassion, and respect as utilised in ‘Western’ literature. Yet, the same concepts are reflected when one examines African models of leadership such as Ubuntu. Therefore, Bulti demonstrates why eclectic approaches in decolonising leadership would be critical in Africa institutions. He does this as he explores the invaluable nature of Values-Based Leadership (VBL); he explicates VBL as a leadership model meant to contribute to institutional success, particularly in terms of establishing a desired relationship among the working staff, and between leaders and followers. Values-Based Leadership is defined as “a relationship between a leader and followers that is based on shared strongly internalised ideological values adopted by the leader and strong followers’ identification with those values”. Hlela’s chapter 8 entitled, Reflections on Programming in an Afrocentric Distance Education Certificate Programme: A Case Study, raises the argument that frequently programming or curriculum formulation in the African context is too often drawn uncritically from Western theoretical frameworks such as humanism, andragogy, constructivism is usually problematic. All these frameworks are informed by individualistic conceptions of learners and learning, shaped by industrial and postindustrial political economy, liberal democratic politics and consumerist culture. Hlela argues that common among these curriculum designing is how knowledge is portrayed as universal and applicable in all contexts. However, this knowledge tends to overlook local socio-cultural context or local histories. Such programmes (Western thoughts and knowledge) are thus imposed to African ‘territories’ of learning (supposedly undeveloped African thoughts and knowledge) just like the colonial template only this time Africans impose the template upon themselves through disciplinary power. The chapter presents and documents history of the certificate programming since its first offering; it also explores the extent to which a distance education Certificate Programme locates itself within Afrocentrism in relation to content and programming and concludes that it remains at infusion phase. The chapter presents five tenets of an Afrocentric programme. In Heutagogy, Decolonisation and Rethinking Knowledge: Voices of University Teachers (chapter 9), Lalendle and Msila commence their discussion from the 2015/2016 student uprisings in South Africa, which initiated debates that enveloped, and conscientised the entire society on the ills of the past hegemonic system of education. The students were organised under the banner of what was to be referred to as the ‘Must Fall Movements’; #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall whose effects spread across the country as students demanded liberatory education as well as open access to institutions of higher learning. These authors state that these calls for a transformed system of education soon led to the calls for a decolonised system that would end epistemic violence in institutions of higher learning. Apart from access, there was also exploration of student success which also enabled role players including students, to initiate debates on the formulation of innovative teaching and learning strategies that would serve the society with meaningful and relevant education. This chapter uses a case study to examine the effect of the self-determined nature of heutagogy congruent to what some referred to as liberatory, decolonised methods. In doing this, university teachers are interviewed on their experiences on Heutagogy as a liberatory method of teaching. In chapter 10, Decolonising Epistemologies: The Paradoxes of a Self-Colonised State, Ramadikela, Msila and Abera explore the interesting case of Ethiopia, a country that was never colonised by the European powers but became complicit in its own colonisation. The Ethiopian traditional education was based on a rich history, which could be traced to the Solomonic dynasty, and was highly supported by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The school was then religiously based provided in not only churches but also monasteries as well ancient. After the Second World War, the Ethiopians intensified attempts to modernise their education using external advisors from Britain and the United States of America and that is when major changes were introduced including the English language as medium of teaching and learning. This chapter explores the path followed by a state that colonised itself thus creating several complexities as Eurocentric view minimised the importance of language, culture and epistemologies. The arguments in the chapter support a need for a dynamic model where the traditional educations system should not be marginalised instead it should be developed and combined with the Western models of education. The present system is a burden to learners who have to struggle with not only language of learning and teaching but a system that disregards Ethiopian. Afolabi in Lost in Translation: Revisiting Decolonisation Project in Nigerian Education (chapter 11) examines the mantra on decolonising Nigerian education. Scholars have carried out several projects on how to decolonise teaching, such as the Fafunwa Education Project, and learning in Nigerian Education System, yet nothing has changed. Afolabi questions the paradox of using a colonial language, English, to debate decolonisation. He says this has posed a huge challenge to Nigerian languages in which students are taught and learn through a colonial language. He also examines the lack of an enabling environment to teaching, learning, and the political will that compounds the challenges of Nigerian education. The chapter raises questions, which include what prospects are there for African languages in teaching and learning? What challenges colonial languages pose on Nigerian education? Finally, the chapter examines the reasons behind the failure of the call for decolonisation and how the English language can be decolonised. In Transforming Leadership: Towards the Advancement of Decolonisation and Social Justice (chapter 12), Setlhodi and Ramadikela focus on leadership and decolonisation. These authors write about the need to undo the teachings and learning of education as they pose pertinent questions: (i) how does one erase or unlearn what one has learnt and internalised over time? (ii) Why is it imperative to decolonise – what can be done to reconfigure acquired knowledge, skills, values, beliefs as well as habits) and (iii) does unlearning imply total negation of colonial teachings? Whilst raising these probing questions, these authors emphasise that decolonisation and transformation are not synonymous. The authors claim that decolonising implies freeing selves from imperialist ideologies and imposition, and it underscores the reclaiming identity and following our distinct makeup to bring about social justice. In the final chapter, Agbogun focuses on the Western Thought and African Presence in Biblical Interpretation (chapter 13). The Bible has over the epochs been explained in particular ways that appears to suit the Western narrators. Agbogun argues that the exegesis from the original Bible was drawn from a text what was originally written in Greek or Hebrew languages. The Bible then has this complexity of being drawn from particular cultures with antiquated expressions. The synoptic gospels have similarities in most of the narratives of Jesus’ life and ministry. The cumulative result and conclusion of the life and ministry of Jesus are suffering, death and resurrection, which translated into the completion of salvation and redemption for humankind according to the Bible. Decolonising the interpretation of the Bible means imagining the African perspectives within the stories of the Bible. Agbogun pushes for the contextualisation and highlighting the Bible’s relevance. This chapter also demonstrates how Western knowledge has misled people in biblical interpretation as it defines Africa and Africans in the New Testament. References Botwe-Asamoah, K. 2005. Kwame Nkrumah’s Politico-Cultural Thought and policies: An African-Centered Paradigm for the Second Phase of the African Revolution. New York: Routledge. Diop, C.A. 2000. 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