Abstract
Education institutions are often considered as spaces where equalisation of individuals begin. This means that within the schools, human beings are required to treat each other fairly since these spaces decide the future of society. Similarly, systems that are meant to educate people are also expected to be fair and just. While these assumptions are proclaimed in policy documents, practically, schools have often served as stratifying spaces for different groups of individuals. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate epistemological injustices and inequalities within the contexts of open and distance learning (ODL) in Malawi’s higher education institutions (HEIs). The assumption was that in HEIs where ODL operate alongside face-to-face (f2f) programmes, there could be power-relations and competition for limited resources, and systems lapses which would eventually lead to epistemological injustices. Moreover, in the absence of critical research on epistemological injustices in ODL in Africa and Malawi included, chances were high that policymakers would design policies that could accelerate inequalities within ODL and higher education contexts.
The main aim of this study was to understand and explain how education policies and practices in HEIs in Malawi can promote epistemological access and injustices within ODL contexts. Since inequalities are usually situated, as they occur differently under different situations, and are perceived differently by different people, this study employed a qualitative research approach using phenomenological traditions. It mainly analysed policy documents on ODL, internal communications and memos, ODL WhatsApp group conversations for academics, related journal articles, book chapters on ODL, official newsletters and websites among others. These documents were analysed using ideology critique and critical hermeneutics (interpretivism). In terms of theoretical framework, the study utilised Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy, John Mill’s Utilitarianism, Bourdieu’s Class Distinction, and John Rawls’ Justices as Fairness, as proposed by Kelvin Kumashiro. This study further upheld the conception of epistemological injustice as advanced by Miranda Fricker, who understood it as the exclusion of marginalised people from accessing necessary communicative processes (Testimonial injustice), and necessary resources in education and society (hermeneutic injustice). On this basis, this study understood epistemological injustices as mainly encompassing curriculum injustices within educational contexts.
Key findings from this study have demonstrated that ODL in Malawi was mainly influenced by international instruments such as the Education for All Movements, and the Dakar Human Rights Declaration of 1948, which were not tailored for Africa’s contexts. The study further recognised these instruments as vehicles of neoliberal-globalism, and an attempt by the West to re-colonise developing countries through education and politics. It further demonstrated that neoliberalism has promoted serious epistemological injustices in education and society in Malawi and other developing countries in general. Through minimalism, neoliberalism has led to reduced state funding on education, while turning universities into cash-cows. Within minimalist contexts, use of ODL has further piled a lot of pressure on the available resources hence resulting into poor and unequitable quality education. To balance this, HEIs have had to increase their tuition fees, increased research and publications and embarked on unconventional means of generating incomes, making them abandon their traditional roles as public goods providers. Since neoliberalism survives on competition for everything including in education, ODL and f2f students have often struggled over resources leaving ODL students as the worst losers of various epistemological injustices.
The study has recommended that Malawi should embrace an amalgam of critical and post-structuralist theories such as those suggested by Kelvin Kumashiro when formulating
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educational policies to avoid creating epistemological injustices. This is so because epistemological injustices are not only situated and diverse, but also becoming more and more complex than ever before. The need for increased access to education against limited state funding, has also influenced debates on commodification of knowledge; debates on university ranking and reputation; concerns around graduate employability and fit, concerns on quality education and standards, and the need for 21st Century knowledge and skills. Within these dilemmas, Critical Pedagogy has held the central pole as it advocates for educational policies and practices that prioritise humanisation, critical conscientisation, problem-posing and critical thinking as necessary values and skills for the 21st century globalised spaces. Since Critical Pedagogy promotes democratic values, then schools will serve as incubators for democratic citizens who will eventually entrench epistemological access and justice in the schools and society in general.