A Clarion Call for Decolonisation of Curriculum in South Africa: The Struggle Left Unattended

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore in greater details and assess the potency of the current educational curriculum's responsiveness towards socio economic issues and market demand. The paper proposes the need for the decolonising of the inclusive and well-resourced education in South African educational contexts. The clarion call for decolonisation of curriculum in South African institutions of learning be it basic education and higher education endure to relish appeals both from the students and the academics. Decolonisation of education, therefore, rest upon academics who coordinates teaching and learning in public educational institutions. For instance, on the 26 November 2020 the Minister of higher education Dr Blade Nzimande noted students who enrol for courses that are not short of in the market breeding more unemployment with government spending funds on students that are not going to be employed. The question that rises from his speech is: Why are those courses offered by institutions of higher learning if they are not contributing to the unemployment reduction? The paper adopted the Afrocentricity Theory by Asante (1980) in order to strengthen the argument that the current curricula is guarding against unemployment being addressed. The paper uses the Constitution of Republic of South Africa 1996, chapter 2, section 29, and subsection 2 to fortify the argument. The paper further proposes that a decolonised well-resourced education as a basic human need that will serve as a panacea to the tripartite debacles faced by the country of which are poverty, unemployment, and inequality. The inability of the curriculum to respond to contextual issues is as of the lack of capacity of both Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education and Training.