Abstract
This study presents a theoretical and critical analysis of the challenges of decolonising university curricula in South Africa. This research is based on the premise that university curricula has not considerably changed due to the incessant use of western epistemologies, diverse nature of the South African landscape, many languages, complexities among African scholars and the influences of neoliberal and globalisation policies and practices on higher education. Universities have been caught in the middle to bridge the gap and strike a balance such that university curricula constitute both western and African (South) knowledges and languages. This study follows the qualitative research design that aimed at exploring and discovering themes from data collected. It adopts an interpretivist research approach as it deals with the collection and analyses of extensive review of data from journals, articles and books so as to describe and interpret related works. It entails a hermeneutics analysis of data so as to understand the meaning derived from textual analysis. It adopts critical theory as its theoretical framework and uses decoloniality paradigm to explain concepts. Findings indicate that universities in South Africa still pride in the knowledges and languages of the western world as ideals. These knowledges are held as unquestionable truths that cannot be challenged. Hence, they continue to dominate and disregard South African philosophies. Amidst these challenges, university curricula could actually be decolonised if the powers that be and the department responsible for designing curricula include South African world views and languages as part of the curricula. However, this has not been the case as the decolonisation process is yet to be achieved.
M.Ed. (Education and Curriculum Studies)