Menu Close

Articles on Decolonisation

Displaying 141 - 160 of 164 articles

Students cheer as a statue of Cecil John Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town in April 2015. REUTERS/Sumaya Hisham

Decolonising the curriculum: it’s time for a strategy

There is a risk that because of fatigue, frustration and silencing the important moment created by South Africa’s student movements will pass by with no proper, long-term structural change.
Students want colonial symbols, such as this statue of Cecil John Rhodes, gone from their universities. EPA/Nic Bothma

Decolonising universities isn’t an easy process – but it has to happen

Calls for the decolonisation of countries, institutions, the mind and of knowledge are not new. In South Africa, these changes are crucial and long overdue. But they must be carefully thought through.
Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, who died in 2013, wrote stories that offer students from all disciplines valuable insights about the world they want to fix one day. EPA/Frank May

How reading fiction can help students understand the real world

Students of the social and political sciences can benefit enormously from being taught literature, short stories and watching artistic feature films.
South Africa was hit by an unprecedented wave of student protests against fee hikes, racism and for the decolonisation of curriculum. Reuters/Mike Hutchings

Want to understand the decolonisation debate? Here’s your reading list

Many works published on decolonisation originate from Ngugi wa Thiongo’s idea of decolonising the African mind. Imperialism, he writes, has left its mark on the minds of the previously colonised.
Tertiary institutions in South Africa, like the University of Cape Town (pictured here), are in a state of flux and change. Shutterstock

How academic staff development can contribute to changing universities

South Africa’s universities are in a state of upheaval. Academic developers must rethink their own purpose and how they work with academics in this environment to foster positive change.
University of Johannesburg students summarise their goal in a hashtag. The question is, what happens next? Kim Ludbrook/EPA

Student protesters must move beyond hashtags to real change

Student protests in South Africa saw triumph for the hashtag and success for the slogan. What lies beyond this as students push for genuine change in universities?
Gabriel Kenny, aged five, gets to grips with Mandarin characters as part of a US school program. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Teaching Mandarin in schools is another slap in the face for African languages

There is a new potential coloniser on South Africa’s linguistic block. From 2016, Mandarin will be taught in schools – and this will see African languages bumped even further down the pecking order.
Marshal Admiral Yamamoto’s bunker in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, which was the wartime headquarters of the Japanese in the south-west Pacific. AAP/Lloyd Jones

Remember the Pacific’s people when we remember the war in the Pacific

The Pacific War played out as a colonial war in the Pacific. It was brutal for non-combatant civilians in its path, and its impact epitomised the dehumanising capacity of both war and colonialism.

Top contributors

More