Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-023-00188-w
Towards transforming teaching and learning in higher education:
interrogating poverty through a decolonial perspective
Otilia Chiramba1
· Shireen Motala1
Received: 28 September 2022 / Revised: 27 February 2023 / Accepted: 2 March 2023 / Published online: 10 May 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Abstract
This paper aims to address three questions relating to the imperatives of knowledge transformation, the impact of poverty
broadly and material poverty in particular, and questions of pedagogy or approaches to delivering knowledge in higher education institutions. Transformation of teaching and learning in higher education is at a crossroads in South Africa. A major
driver of this is the recently emerged student-led protests on decolonisation. At these crossroads are a number of factors
with the potential to facilitate or inhibit the decolonisation process. First is a conceptual paralysis regarding understanding
of the idea in the country’s higher education. Second are competing ideological imperatives which confound universities’
strategic choices. Third is the fact that the academy has a high proportion of staff who themselves are products of the system
they hope to transform. The paper utilises conceptual and theoretical arguments to explore the state of teaching and learning
in South Africa and to learn how the protests have enhanced or/and diminished educational gains among students who are
poverty stricken and facing deprivation. The paper argues for a theory of decoloniality to shape thinking and practices which
enable higher education institutions to transform teaching and learning and specially to drive the type of transformation
which enhances poor students’ epistemological access. The paper recommends investment in further research to explore
the impact of material poverty in higher education and how the transformation of knowledge and pedagogy could be better
understood for the majority of students who live with poverty in higher education.
Keywords Decoloniality · Epistemic disruption · Material poverty · Teaching and learning
Introduction
In post-apartheid democratic South Africa, decolonisation
has mainly focused on transforming education and on higher
education specifically. The argument that knowledge, and
the standards that determine its validity, has been disproportionately informed by Western systems of thought and
ways of thinking is not new in the context of decolonisation.
Gwaravanda (2019) argues that this kind of knowledge has
implications for the African way of knowing.
Decolonisation is not a new concept and is commonly
used to mean transition from and resistance to colonialism. In education, decolonisation involves tackling and
* Otilia Chiramba
otiliac@uj.ac.za
Shireen Motala
smotala@uj.ac.za
1
Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg,
Johannesburg, South Africa
dismantling “the epistemic violence and hegemony of
Eurocentrism, completely rethink[ing], refram[ing] and
reconstruct[ing] the curriculum and plac[ing] South Africa,
Southern Africa and Africa at the centre of teaching, learning and research” (Heleta, 2016, p. 3). In education and
higher education specifically, we recognise the decolonisation ideology as posing questions around what knowledge
is of greatest worth, what content we should be teaching,
how education should be delivered to students from different
socioeconomic backgrounds and how these students should
be assessed. Fiske and Ladd (2004) argue that knowledge
transformation is necessary if South Africa is to build a
racially equitable society. There is great need to maintain
a keen focus on eradicating the hegemony of the Western
canon which has tended to reproduce and cement inequalities and epistemological injustices in post-colonial higher
education institutions.
Voices for the decolonisation of higher education in
formerly colonised spaces, including on the African continent, have been increasing in intensity in recent years
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(Jansen, 2019; Maringe, 2020; Rensburg et al., 2020).
The focus on the politics of knowledge which is central to the edited book by Jansen (2019) is a legitimate
and an important one and provides a useful means by
which the universities could interrogate the notion
of decolonisation especially in relation to the student
protests of 2015/2016. These are an important focus
of this paper. Jansen’s book has dealt mainly with coloniality of knowledge, driven largely by the neo-liberal
argument, which in itself is an important dimension of
the capitalist project of the West (Jansen, 2019). However, whilst Jansen’s argument is generative in the sense
of identifying strategies that confront neo-liberalism in
higher education, it seems to have ignored the context in
which higher education operates especially in the postcolonial world. We believe that one of the key aspects
of this context is the persistent phenomenon of poverty.
We argue that as long as poverty is not interrogated in its
various multi-dimensional factors, the project of decolonisation of higher education might simply reproduce
the asymmetries of power, knowledge and being which
the project of neo-liberalism and capitalism has firmly
established in our universities and societies. This paper
focuses on the aspect of poverty and its three dimensions of material, economic and epistemological deprivations and their impact on the decolonisation project in
higher education (Motala et al., 2021). As Bawa (2020,
p. 49) has rightly said, the three dimensions of poverty
are among the issues that sparked the 2015/2016 student
protests:
Among the many students’ activist voices at the time,
one heard a powerfully articulated view that the higher
education system was a part of the socio-political
infrastructure that produced and maintained a society
of deep inequality, grinding poverty, corruption and,
ultimately, the erosion of the promises of the Freedom
Charter and the struggle for democracy. One has to
ask whether it is time to think more specifically about
a social justice agenda for higher education: broadening the access and success of students, addressing the
decolonisation of its knowledge project and maximising the opportunity for the intellectual, physical, social
and emotional development of its students; thereby
reconfiguring its relationship with its publics.
Whilst we acknowledge Jansen’s (2019) focus on higher
education principles of the politics of knowledge in universities, in our view, he did not place sufficiently robust emphasis on how this knowledge is created and transmitted within
higher education through research, teaching and learning
amidst the poverty which has a huge impact on the education
system as a whole.
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Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
This paper focuses on the intersectionality among three
factors of poverty and deprivation, epistemologies and
knowledge systems and modalities of teaching and learning
in higher education to examine how these factors combine to
create different modes of discrimination and privilege. The
paper also examines the kind of decolonisation advocated by
students in the RhodesMustFall (#RMF) and the FeesMustFall (#FMF) protests. These protests were motivated by the
economic and material deprivation that the majority of the
students were facing. #RMF started at Rhodes University
when students wanted the removal of the statue of Rhodes
because for them, it was a symbol of perpetual colonialism (Nyamnjoh, 2021). #FMF was the name attached to the
subsequent protests among students at universities across
South Africa and was provoked by a fee increase of 10.5% at
the University of the Witwatersrand in 2015/2016 (Chikane,
2018). The needs for free education and decolonisation of
higher education were at the heart of the protest (Chikane,
2018). Mavunga (2019) argues that student protests of this
nature are an extension of an unresolved past and persistent
poverty.
#FMF and #RMF gave the spark to the extensive and substantive debates around the decolonisation project in South
African higher education. Below, we indicate the gaps in
literature relating to student-led protest.
Firstly, we lack sufficient knowledge of how issues of
poverty and deprivations impact on students’ navigation of
and persistence to progress in higher education. Secondly,
we are not sufficiently informed about what knowledge is of
value and how students may be supported to reach the highest level of participation and engagement in knowledge creation as demanded by the universities. Lastly, we are limited
in our knowledge of how to conduct effective teaching and
learning among students facing material poverty. The paper
thus aims to expand the theoretical and conceptual knowledge base for understanding the impact of disruptions in
higher education with a focus on the impact of poverty and
its dimensions of material, economic and epistemological
deprivations and how they impact on teaching and learning
and on students’ knowledge development. The debates raised
by the #FMF and #RMF movements question whether the
South Africa higher education system has sufficiently transformed in at least three ways and this constitutes the three
questions central to this paper:
• What is the impact of poverty and deprivation on teach-
ing and learning in higher education?
• What knowledge transformation is needed to deal more
effectively with contextual issues within universities?
• How have different modalities of teaching and learning
been incorporated in universities to address challenges
for students facing material deprivation?
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
Decolonisation within a context of poverty
and deprivation
The aforementioned positions are the authors’ constructions based on theoretical and conceptual literature in the
field. We argue that the debates on decolonisation are scattered and lacking and consequently only provide a partial
answer to the problem. We further argue that, despite the
move to a decolonisation agenda as brought by the #FMF
movement, the academy has only meaningfully addressed
the symbolic dimension of transformation with less focus
on how students from low socioeconomic backgrounds can
be recognised within the epistemological and ideological
dimensions of decolonisation. We theorise the debates and
bring them together with the aim of creating a starting
point for compiling evidence and adding knowledge to the
long-standing debate of decolonisation.
Twenty-one years after the introduction of the decolonisation agenda, students, through protests, demanded that
the curriculum be based on Afrocentric principles, making reference to African authors. We view this kind of
decolonisation led by student protests as a crisis that has
brought many disruptions in the academy. The protests
raised questions about epistemes and structures of power
and knowledge. Despite the negative impact, they awakened researchers and university leadership to the realisation that the decolonisation project has been slow and that
it is necessary to develop more viable solutions.
An extended definition of decolonisation in education involves putting forth the needs of all students and
being responsive to the particular needs of each student.
Devlin (2013) has argued that when students from low
socioeconomic backgrounds succeed at university, all
students succeed. However, as argued by one scholar, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are not well
positioned in relation to social and cultural capital that
enables them to negotiate the educational strategies that
facilitate university (Tranter, 2012). This has also been
argued in Bourdieu’s popular theory of social capital and
habitus (Bourdieu, 1977). His main argument is that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds lack cultural,
linguistic, economic, social and symbolic capital that is
highly valued in education. The epistemological and methodological trends in the scholarship of student access and
success heavily depend on global theoretical influences
which are detached from contextual realities and therefore
need de-colonial approaches that reflect social justice as
well as accounting for the contextual peculiarities of students’ agency and experience (Cross & Govender, 2021).
Thus, the concept of poverty and deprivation plays a critical role in this paper. We argue that as long as we do not
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interrogate students’ contextual peculiarities, the road to
decolonisation will continue to wind and remain slippery
and, as a result, fail to realise significant transformation.
Yosso (2005) moves away from the deficit view of people of disadvantaged backgrounds and focuses on cultural
knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by this
group and argues that these are useful for them to navigate
education. However, the skills are often unrecognised and
unacknowledged in education and specifically in higher
education (Yosso, 2005). Although that is the case, we
acknowledge that something has been achieved in South
Africa post-1994 to democratise education. This includes,
among other interventions, widening access to previously
marginalised groups and distribution/redistribution of
resources. However, there is little evidence that these
interventions have had an impact, thus giving rise to the
student-led decolonisation protests.
We acknowledge Maringe and Moletsane’s (2015)
research which extensively explored the concept of poverty and views it as a multifaceted concept. They framed
poverty as a seven-dimensional: income, material, epistemological, employment, health, education, capability and ethical kinds of poverty (Maringe & Moletsane,
2015). Their argument is that governments, universities
and schools “tend to provide single-track solutions to
the poverty-stricken educational environments” and that
this does not help in ameliorating poverty and deprivation (Maringe & Moletsane, 2015, p. 354). For them, “the
effects are multidimensional and difficult to erase and
need multipronged and multidimensional interventions”
(Maringe & Moletsane, 2015, p. 355). We realise that this
research was carried out in basic education in South Africa
and that we have insufficient literature in higher education
that speaks to poverty and deprivation. We also note that
the seven dimensions of poverty overlap and interweave.
In this paper, we use only three dimensions to understand
poverty in higher education: the material, income and
epistemological types of poverty. We have chosen these
because they were seen as having sparked the 2015/2016
student protests. We are also aware of the absence of
research that captures the student voice and the limited
empirical evidence.
The next section defines the notion of crises and disruptions. The two concepts give an understanding of how
we have framed the #FMF movement within the decolonisation debates. Without the effort to understand, bring
together and interrogate the already existing evidence
about student-led decolonisation protests and their impact
on teaching and learning, we will not realise meaningful
development in teaching in times of crises and disruption
now and in the future.
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The notion of crisis
We generally view a crisis as a moment that leads to an unstable
situation, consequently affecting the people concerned. Crises
usually occur abruptly with no warning, with people caught
unawares. As briefly discussed in the introductory section, we
locate students’ protests within crises. Coombs (2007, pp. 2–3)
defined a crisis as “the perception of an unpredictable event that
threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organisation’s performance and generate negative outcomes”.
The concept of crisis in the Marxist notion of capitalism is
where the term denoted a dangerous point for either labour or
capital or both (Gamble, 2010). For Rikowski (2020), a crisis is
a turning point where “systems face ruptures, radical changes
or strengthening” (p. 12). Gamble (2010) emphasised that it is
an event that may lead to unstable conditions and may affect
an individual, a group or the whole society. Examples of crises
that are externally driven include floods, earthquakes, nuclear
disasters and pandemics (Rush, 2020). However, some crises,
like student protests and staff withdrawal of labour, are internally driven (Maringe et al., 2020). However, internally driven
crises seem to have the same impact as ones originating from
outside. Chiramba (2021) argues that, when hit by crises, countries rethink and redefine a new kind of normality that allows
transformation. The same applies to education systems, such
as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic and the student-led
decolonisation protests in 2015/2016 which pushed the systems
to rapidly adapt to new ways of doing things. The usual way of
doing things is disrupted and organisations innovate at a much
faster pace than they could normally have. During an emergency,
they renew energy to develop new ideas and drive change (Hill,
2020). For example, during the student protests, university leaders realised that traditional top-down leadership styles were ineffective; as a result, they became more open, allowing individuals
at various points of expertise to jointly lead. The involvement
of various stakeholders and the need for a coordinated approach
during crises are essential for successful resolution of the problem. Thus, we argue that crises are central to and necessary for
bringing disruption and in the context of education, they cause
epistemic disruptions.
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
find solutions to long-standing problems. For example, since
the 2015/2016 student protests, there are great opportunities to
critically reflect on students’ educational experiences. Given the
debates that have arisen as a result of the protests, there are also
opportunities for academics to embark on knowledge creation
informed by their own social and indigenous settings as opposed
to reproducing external interpretations. As with the COVID-19
pandemic, the student protests were a significant, visible and
positive force of disruption. Like the strong trend to technology
use during the COVID-19 pandemic, student-led protests about
decolonisation have had a significant impact on “the social processes and relations of knowledge production” (Hallinger, 2019
p. 320). Protests in general serve to conscientise people to the
challenges ingrained within organisations.
The second negative aspect of epistemic disruption is where
internal or external forces alter the normal course of events to
the extent that epistemological gains and access are curtailed or
severely impacted. Such disruptions cause teaching and learning
stoppages and, in severe cases, can lead to the closure of educational institutions. Those who suffer the most are students from
marginalised communities as the solutions to these disruptions
tend to be based on middle-class values which do not resonate
with the preferences and needs of low-income students and those
who suffer material poverty. An example is that of the recent
COVID-19 pandemic with its abrupt turn to online teaching
and learning which has tended to favour the richer students over
the poorer ones (Maringe et al., 2020). Research on digitisation
and equity has clearly shown that students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are faced with a myriad of challenges when
it comes to the implementation of technology-driven teaching
and learning environments (Rodriguez, 2009). The most common challenges are related to accessibility, affordability, connectivity, availability and usability of the online devices (Rodriguez,
2009). This also applies when universities are closed because of
protests. Students who are economically and materially deprived
have no other means of accessing knowledge especially when
learning from home. The literature shows that learning gains for
vulnerable students tend to be corroded in such times (Maringe
et al., 2020). Reading levels, mathematical abilities and computational skills, which are foundational for learning, are lost
during periods of disruption. We argue that these challenges
result in epistemic injustice.
The notion of epistemic disruption
Theoretical framework
The term epistemic disruption is composed of two aspects:
the first represents opportunity and the second barriers. Whilst
the term itself can be viewed in a negative way as expensive
and detracting from other priorities, a closer look shows that
epistemic disruption is significant in directing education sectors and higher education in particular to act with urgency to
Decoloniality
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This paper utilises decoloniality theory as its theoretical framework. One of the main aims of the decolonisation project is
to achieve social justice and equity within higher education.
However, we still see a system which continues to favour
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
middle- and upper-class values at the expense of those from
low socioeconomic backgrounds. Thus, the theory equips us
with knowledge of fighting coloniality to achieve our objectives of decolonisation. Coloniality as used in post-colonial
studies means continued domination and exploitation in various forms and across multiple sectors of society despite the
call for decolonisation. The concept of coloniality is discussed
in detail in the following section.
The discourse of decoloniality was introduced by Quijano
(1990). It delinks from the colonial matrix of power (Mignolo
& Walsh, 2018). Maldonado-Torres (2011, p. 5) provided an
extended definition of decoloniality:
By decoloniality, it is meant here the dismantling of
relations of power and conceptions of knowledge that
foment the reproduction of racial, gender, and geopolitical hierarchies that came into being or found new
and more powerful forms of expression in the modern/
colonial world struggles to bring into intervening existence another interpretation that bring forward, on the
one hand, a silenced view of the event and, on the other,
shows the limits of imperial ideology disguised as the
true (total) interpretation of the events in the making of
the modern world.
Maldonado-Torres (2016) describes decoloniality as a turn
against coloniality. The discourse, as an antithesis of coloniality, demands freedom from colonisation. In 2015, students from the RhodesMustFall movement made a number of
demands that permeated from their tiredness with coloniality
and how it manifested itself in spaces of higher education.
Among these demands were “the decolonisation of the curriculum, and socially just pedagogies and equity of access”
(Postma, 2019, p. 7). These demands became one of the main
goals of the protests. We use the theory of decoloniality as a
lens to explore how students may be liberated from material
and economic poverty, irrelevant knowledge and ways of disseminating knowledge that do not allow them to flourish.
Review of related literature
The theoretical and conceptual dimensions
of decolonisation
Some concepts and theories are discussed in this paper to
examine why it has been so difficult to achieve the longenvisaged transformation. Below, we begin by discussing
transformation as consisting of three dimensions: the symbolic, the epistemological and the ideological. We argue
that the three dimensions are equally and significantly
important and true and that meaningful transformation
should not omit any one of them.
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Symbolic transformation
Like epistemological and ideological transformation, symbolic transformation whilst important should not be an
end in itself (Maringe & Chiramba, 2021). Transformation in the context of decolonisation should go beyond
symbolic transformation. The concept of symbolic transformation includes policies, strategies, renaming roads and
lecture halls and recruiting black staff and Vice Chancellors among other actions which show the observable face
of transformation (Maringe & Chiramba, 2021). Kotter
(2009) argues that the reason why transformation always
fails is that it only goes as far as, for example, formulating new policies yet true transformation is expected to go
beyond that to implement the policies and alter the effectiveness of systems and processes.
Carini (1969) discussed elements of symbolic transformation as structural and involving processual elements,
people capacitation and resource allocation without which,
he argues, the physiology of transformation cannot be sustained. These are the visible signs or symbols of not only
the desire and ambition to transform but also the anatomy
that supports and provides the enabling resources for transformation (Carini, 1969). For Carini (1969), structural
elements involve transforming organisational or systemic
infrastructures. This includes the creation of institutional
leadership and management formations to lead the transformational ambitions and also committees that deliberate
and report on required institutional changes. Lastly, Carini
(1969) argues that processual elements include the creation of systems, procedures, strategies and implementation
plans.
The people capacitation element involves special training and continuous professional development of the agents
of transformation in organisations and at the systemic
level. The resource element includes allocation of adequate budgets and integrated accountability processes in
their utilisation. Whilst many universities now have transformation as a key part of their agenda of overall strategic
intent, there have not been many high-level appointments
at the levels of DVC to steer the transformational ambitions of universities. Examination of universities’ senior
level management structures suggests that transformation
is often relegated to mere administrative roles which tend
to deal with issues of the anatomy rather than the physiology of transformation.
Epistemology and epistemic transformation in universities
Epistemic transformation refers to the cosmologies of
knowledge and how these contribute to a better understanding of people, how they think, feel, understand and
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utilise the knowledge to build a more equitable present
and future for themselves (Maringe & Chiramba, 2021).
The current status of the universities and how they operate entrench old patterns of exclusion (Heleta, 2016).
Kotze (2018, p. 113) summarised what was said to characterise exclusion in the 2015/2016 student protests.
South African universities were cast as untransformed, crippled by institutionalised racism and
curricula unsuitable for an African context and
advancing a political project of African knowledge.
Instead of facilitating social change and transformation, the claim is that South African universities
continue to oppress the African through prioritising
European and Western literature and Euro-centric
views, and that this is evident in whose voices find
expression in curricula and in the classroom. They
favour European, American, and Anglo-Saxon
authors and thinkers in philosophy and English
classes as well as celebrating the advances in science by Westerners while glossing over African
achievements.
In tandem with Kotze (2018), Heleta’s point is that
the knowledge systems in South African universities
have not meaningfully changed. Of importance to note
is that the curriculum has barely changed and remains
rooted in white and western ways of knowing (Heleta,
2016). Decolonising such a curriculum involves rethinking, reframing and reconstructing the curriculum to suit
African ways of knowing in teaching, learning, research
and assessment. As it is now, it presents the epistemic
violence and hegemony of Eurocentrism.
We embrace Morrow’s call to move beyond physical
access to epistemological access (Morrow, 2009). As
opposed to physical access, which we argue has largely
been achieved in South Africa, epistemological access
provides mechanisms for ensuring that all students, whatever their socioeconomic background, gender, race or
class, should enjoy equitable access to the cosmologies
of knowledge and the benefits intended. Maringe and
Chiramba (2021) view epistemological access as a triadic
concept comprising cognitive access, access to relevant
knowledge of the greatest worth and the opportunity to
equitably reap the benefits of an education. What they
note as a gap in the literature is that, whilst the cognitive and equitable benefits dimensions have been extensively explored, we know very little about the notion of
access to knowledge of the greatest worth (Maringe &
Chiramba, 2021). Reconceptualising the notion of knowledge in higher education should therefore include interrogating the aspect of worthwhile knowledge. In research
carried out by Chiramba (2020), refugee students argued
that the knowledge they acquire in South Africa is not
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Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
relevant for their home countries and that therefore that
kind of knowledge is not of worth to them when they
consider going back to rebuild their countries of origin.
Maringe and Chiramba (2021) also argue that worthwhile
knowledge should involve the past, the present and the
future of the people using it.
The main task of universities should therefore be to create, disseminate and transform knowledge into innovation
for use by society (Altbach, 2016). For this to happen, there
is a need to reconceptualise the discourse of knowledge
transformation. Mbembe (2015) argues that epistemic transformation in African universities involves the re-centring
of knowledge production systems to subvert the epistemic
violence occasioned by the Western canon and recalibrating
a new pluri-versal and inclusive knowledge system. In the
quest to transform knowledge, questions to be asked are what
and whose knowledge (Motala et al., 2021). De Sousa Santos
(2015) argues that the answers often supplied to questions
about knowledge are partial and very weak.
Knowledge is at the heart of social and economic development across the world and therefore, the need to transform the knowledge dimension to reflect the transition from
a deeply divided and unequal society created by the apartheid and colonial regimes should be central to the transformational agenda in universities in South Africa (Teferra
& Altbach, 2004). Knowledge is produced largely through
research in our universities. Its production is determined
by the new questions researchers must ask to reflect the
needs of a transforming society, including the development
and utilisation of new theories and models for its creation
(Jansen, 2004). Knowledge dissemination happens largely
through teaching, publication and conferences. The models
and mechanisms for dissemination of knowledge have hardly
changed but it is through crises and disruptions that we note
some few changes. Western control over journals and over
the criteria which evidences good teaching has become even
tighter as local journals continue to exist on the peripheries
of knowledge dissemination practices in higher education;
and the criteria for high impact journals continue to prioritise Western and international journals rather than local ones
(Akena, 2012).
Ideological transformation
Ideological transformation includes a broad societal perspective on a national identity and its preferred elements of a
world view, including the theories it utilises to interrogate
issues of development, progress and growth (Althusser,
1970; Marx & Engels, 1976). Baker (2009) and Giroux
(2005) argue that all development and under-development
are steeped in ideology. Modernity has been based on an
ideology of the superiority of the Western canon. In South
Africa, apartheid was an ideology which propelled separate
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
and unequal development. Recent ideologies follow the
international and globalised trends of imparting knowledge.
We value Althusser’s (1970) argument that we are because
of ideology which we either recognise or misrecognise and,
through those processes, we gain our identities both as producers and products of our consciousness. He further argues that
a system, especially in the post-colonial world, which does not
alter its ideological orientation can only reproduce the ideology
which preceded it. The key ideological mechanism by which
South Africa sought to transform itself was by becoming a
democratic society as it sought to replace the repressive and
oppressive authoritarian ideology of its apartheid predecessor. However, democracy is an underlying ideology of most
of the free world and the values such as equality, equity and
social justice by which it is sustained are not new to either the
old or new worlds (Youngs, 2015). Although South Africa
embraced the notion of Ubuntu as democratic practice (Sindane & Liebenberg, 2000), up to now, the idea has not firmly
grounded in the consciousness of people and has tended to be a
subject of academic discussion rather than a real underpinning
framework that informs what we do, what and how we think,
how we do things and how we evaluate the success and failure
of our endeavours.
The clash of ideologies also has a huge impact on decolonisation. It seems with the coming of other contemporary
discourses like the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and
internationalisation, decolonisation is sidestepped, and
we are likely to fail to achieve meaningful decolonisation
because academics emulate discourses that originate from
the West.
Pedagogical transformation in teaching
and learning
Omodan (2019) argues that pedagogical transformation
in the new era should involve an “infusion of democracy
and human rights” in teaching and learning. He views three
approaches as central to pedagogical transformation: “teaching and learning as collaborative knowledge construction,
teaching and learning as a critical reasoning process and
teaching learning known as a disruptive caring pedagogy”
(Omodan, 2019, p. 190). These should be practiced in a
bid to fight the traditional ways of teaching which are antidemocratic. Omodan (2019) further argues that we need to
advance democratic learning through the use of experiential and dialogical teaching methods. Dolmans et al. (2005)
argue that universities should move beyond traditional methods of teaching which do not allow critical thinking but are
examination-oriented despite an emphasis on twenty-first
century skills. They advocate problem-based learning and
discuss five principles as significant for promoting engagement, self-confidence and critical thinking in students.
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1. Learning should be a constructive process: students
should be active “creating meaning and building personal
interpretations of the world based on individual experiences and interactions” (Dolmans et al., 2005, p. 32).
2. Learning should be a collaborative process: students
should be given the opportunity to interact with each
other in the knowledge making process.
3. Learning should be a contextual process: all learning
should be situated so that it can be useful to the student.
4. All learning should be a self-directed process: students
become actively involved in planning, monitoring and
evaluate the whole process of teaching and learning.
5. Group work serves as a stimulus for interaction.
Makoelle (2021) bemoans the fact that democratic education remains bleak and educators in schools and universities
are unaware of what constitutes democratic pedagogy; as a
result, they still deploy the same methods they used prior to
democracy.
We now move on to discuss three dimensions of
deprivation.
Three dimensions of deprivation
In this section, we discuss three dimensions of poverty
(material, economic and epistemological) as central dimensions that help us to understand the contextual realities of
higher education in South Africa. We begin by conceptualising the term ‘deprivation’.
The term ‘deprivation’ was used as a lens to examine “an
array of social and economic issues, including poverty, poor
housing conditions, and access to services” (Norris (2007)
in Matheson et al., 2008, p. 678). Townsend (1987) argues
that the term is used not only to analyse social conditions
but also, in applied form, can be used in policy to allocate
resources within a given society. Makomane (2011, p. 3)
gives an extended definition of material deprivation as:
A denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of
human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate in society. It means not having enough to feed
and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go
to, not having a land on which to grow one’s food or
a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit.
It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of
individuals, households and communities. It means
susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living
in marginal or fragile environments, without access to
clean water or sanitation.
Hick (2014) argues that material deprivation and low
income are the most well-known factors defining poverty.
In education, material deprivation includes lack of access
13
S18
to material resources which promote epistemological and
psychosocial capital which enhances students’ adjustment to
new learning environments. The lack of appropriate clothing, shoes, mobile phones and other such resources may in
itself act as an impediment to access and participation.
Income poverty refers to a situation of low or no income
in a household. In the developing world, South Africa is categorised as a wealthy country, yet the majority of its population lives in income poverty (Chikoko, 2021). According
to Chikoko and Mthembu (2021), about a quarter of South
Africa’s population survives on government social grants, an
indicator of severe income poverty. During crises and disruptions, many students and especially those from formerly
marginalised backgrounds could not purchase technology to
utilise during remote teaching and learning. They struggled
to get the basics for survival (Chiramba, 2021).
Epistemological poverty means “being excluded, either
intentionally or otherwise, from life empowering processes
and those processes which increase human dignity, knowledge and understanding” (Maringe & Moletsane, 2015, p.
354).
Poverty and higher education in South Africa
What are the effects of poverty and deprivation
on academic achievement?
According to Letseka and Breier (2008), 50% of students
who enrol in higher education in South Africa drop out
before they complete their studies and that most of the students who dropped out came from low-socioeconomic backgrounds with the breadwinners earning as little as R1 600 or
less a month. The study also discovered that the majority of
the parents in the dropouts’ households did not have formal
education, hence their epistemological poverty resulting in
income poverty (Letseka & Breier, 2008). The study also
found that these dropouts were not able to rely on their parents to supplement what they received from the National
Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS); as a result, they
took part-time jobs, “adding to their stress levels and distracting them from their studies” (Letseka & Breier, 2008,
p. 90). The dropout challenge followed the contours of race
and privilege as more than 60% of the dropouts were black
and coloured, arguing that their major reason for dropping
out was lack of funding (Letseka & Breier, 2008). Failing
courses came as the second major reason, which may have
had two causes: a failure to engage during teaching and
learning because the process was alienating for them; or the
stress of income poverty and lack of time to engage with
their studies, with most of them claiming to work to supplement their finances. These experiences do not align with
the goals of higher education to improve the success rate.
13
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
In a recent study carried out in the Australian higher
education system, McNamara et al., 2019, p. 85) argue
that whilst higher education is considered a “passport out
of poverty”, it is poverty that “often creates both material
and cultural barriers to this access”. They also argue that
childhood poverty coupled with trauma plays a significant
role in how the individual will navigate higher education
(McNamara et al., 2019). The decolonial discourse has been
viewed as having the potential to eradicate poverty and deprivation; however, there is a strong history of resistance to
post-colonial transformation, especially in South Africa.
In fact, there has partial commitment to decolonise higher
education despite the interventions put in place. As stated
previously, we need a comprehensive decolonisation to take
place in universities, with three kinds of transformation happening simultaneously: the symbolic, the epistemological
and the ideological. However, for African universities, the
appeal of a Eurocentric-driven educational reform which is
usually better funded has always been strong. Measurement
of performance is determined by the West. Continued dominance of English, unemployment and persistent poverty are
enemies of decolonisation. Post-colonial countries always
look up to the West.
Conclusions and recommendations:
towards a total commitment
to decolonisation
We have pinpointed a number of factors that act as barriers
to transformation. The first is to do with the need to reconceptualise transformation. This should be framed within
three dimensions: the symbolic, the epistemological and
the ideological. The literature shows that the South African
higher education system has only managed to achieve the
symbolic dimension and struggles to implement the other
two. There has not been much transformation within the
epistemological and ideological dimensions, but universities have tended to use the knowledge and ideologies we are
trying to get rid of. We further argue that coloniality may be
the major reason why matters continue in this way.
The second argument in the paper is to do with epistemological transformation. We developed further the
points on politics of knowledge made by Jansen (2019) and
viewed knowledge as consisting of physical and epistemological knowledge as well as worthwhile knowledge. Failure to unpack and understand these dimensions of knowledge leads to superficial practices within universities and
an eventual failure to achieve meaningful transformation.
Thirdly, we have argued that teaching, learning and
research still follow the methodologies used during colonialism and apartheid. We argued that the discourses, theories and concepts used in the post-colonial context reflect
Curriculum Perspectives (2023) 43 (Suppl 1):S11–S21
those of colonial and apartheid education systems; as a
result, social justice and equity of access remain elusive in
the new era. In education, we must never lose sight of the
need to transform knowledge production systems to create
value for the previously disadvantaged.
Lastly, we argued that something is seriously missing
in the debate about transformation of higher education and
that this has a huge impact on academic achievement. Poverty and its dimensions of material, income and epistemological deprivation are discussed in this paper as aspects
of transformation that are little debate but have a very
large effect on academic achievement. The three dimensions have been implicated in the recent decolonisation
protests as seriously affecting on how students from low
socioeconomic backgrounds navigate higher education.
We argue that interrogating the points discussed above
may help with moving the decolonisation agenda. The starting point should be to engage in empirical research and
explore further the theory of transformation as conceptualised in this paper. Secondly, academics should also aim to
further unpack what we really mean by knowledge in higher
education and equip themselves with the right knowledge
to impart to students. Most importantly, educators should
aim to understand the experiences of students from marginalised communities and accommodate them in the process
of teaching and learning. The starting point should be more
research into what links poverty and deprivation to educational gains. Increasing university access requires specific
measures to address poverty, including financial support and
pedagogies that allow students to flourish.
A pluri-versal educational focus needs to be embedded
in curriculum transformation in post-colonial universities.
We have to resist a chopping and replacing approach to
curriculum transformation. Universities need clear strategies with budgets set aside for the decolonisation of higher
education. Most importantly, we have to champion the
infusion of social justice objectives into the contemporary
and global issues that confront us.
Funding Open access funding provided by University of Johannesburg.
The research for this article was not funded.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that
could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Ethical approval Not applicable. This research is a conceptual paper.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
S19
included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in
the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a
copy of this licence, visit http://​creat​iveco​mmons.​org/​licen​ses/​by/4.​0/.
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