Decolonising Africa’s Higher Education against violence and social injustices.

Abstract

This article explores ways of decolonising higher education for social justice to prevail. The study begins with a description of, decoloniality, as a framework informing higher education systems in Africa. Challenges confronted by African governments as they endeavour to decolonise ingrained systems are, discussed in the paper. The study employed a descriptive research design informed by qualitative research methodologies to create and come up with a comprehensive and accurate representation of, decoloniality in Africa’s higher education. The study is, guided by the assumption that almost all Southern African States have similar challenges of social injustices in Education. The findings of the research are that, higher education in Africa is fraught with challenges emanating from inequalities, access equity and quality education. The poor who cannot afford affluent schools and universities remain disenfranchised while the rich are able to send their children to expensive universities with adequate teaching and learning resources. If principles of justice and freedom were, observed as tenets of, decoloniality in Africa’s universities, the racial and ethnic conflicts that characterised the universities could not have taken place. The #RhodesmustFall of 2015 by the students is one such example of the violent underlying demand of freedom from the students largely motivated by colonial legacies in education. Among the demands by the students was, “the decolonisation of the curriculum, and socially just pedagogies and equity of access” (Postma, 2019, p. 7). Decoloniality as a democratic philosophy appears to be, weakened in higher education by alarming incidences of violence, corruption and lack of resources.