Decolonizing the education system has been a topic covered by a multitude of scholars in the disciplines of Sociology, psychology, Political Economy and even Political Sciences. Its main goal has been the detachment of the curriculum from its Western-centric or Euro-American pedagogy. Third world scholars claim that their voices have been ignored in the academy; furthermore, their unique perspectives and epistemologies have been suppressed, silenced and avoided. Mainstream theories of the Western world have been exported to the developing countries, compelling third world students to adapt to the knowledge economy replicating the developed countries; even after graduation, they go on to become technical workers and managers for transnational corporations. Therefore, the form of education that the Western world is spreading all over the world is in the form of an industrial trainer which benefits their International Enterprises as they absorb the educational conformist learners at the end in the job market. The postcolonial condition has witnessed the continuation of colonial administrations, business functions and path-dependence whereas the sources of income for the employed requires technical learning and highly vocational skills from the youth. Third World academics have only been given the task of interpreting Western discourse, language, International standards and educational benchmarks, without necessarily producing their own knowledge, participating and advocating their opinions and experiences. Third World academics have had to play the catch up game with the West, losing more and more courage to produce their own unique, specific, geographically located and relevant ideas. Books in institutions of higher learning, and also journal articles are usually Western-oriented. How can the third world create its own discourse, pedagogy, perspective, knowledge, theories and ideas in the 21st century? Most Third World scholars do publish books and journals intended at critiquing the continuing domination in the economic and intellectual sphere by the West, but their critiquing never follows any practical and useful recommendations nor does it provide any frontiers or introduce other ways of doing and thinking for the decolonial goal in education to be progressive and successful. What hinders the decolonization process in education?
For a complete background of the study here's a link below: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340399105_Going_it_all_alone_Africa's_potential_for_delinking_from_the_neoliberal_paradigm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon
These authors came into my mind, with respect to your query.
I have read 70% of Frantz Fanon's work.very enlightening and way ahead of his time. I will go through Paulo Freire. Thank you.
Indigenisation (in all forms and manifestations) is the only solution to decolonise the education system.
Although indigenisation may add value to differentiation. I fail to understand how such can produce relevant educational endeavours. For instance, if an area specializes in agriculture, is the education that is available to them only going to be based on that career path. If so does this not lead to nationalism, regionalism and ultimately tribalism as indegenisation will be followed by fragmentation? Does this also mean that, any subject or topic which does not cover economic activity within a defined territory is rendered useless? Will such an education be flexible enough to accommodate migratory work? And will it justify its implications of ignorance of the existence of other histories, art, symbols, systems and knowledge present outside its zone of influence. Does such a decolonization process not lend itself into militarization tactics?
There are questions to be addressed about the project of decolonizing education.I raise them here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03323315.2016.1148232?journalCode=ries20
Thank you for the article. It is addressing real issues concerning decolonizing education through discourse and pedagogy. The issues raised are true. To achieve global values and to ensure children from all parts of the world can study any where, not forgetting innovations, we could think about integration of Education systems. The philosophy informing the article is good as it is the starting point. Thank you.
Linguistic imperialism has been a topic of great interest in the past few decades. Educational globalism has not fulfilled the expectations of the non-western societies. Prescriptions issued by educational experts in the western world should not aim to replace domestic values and traditions since " a man's meat may be another man's poison..
Jacob, thank you for a thought provoking contribution. I can understand your questioning of "Most Third World scholars do publish books and journals intended at critiquing the continuing domination in the economic and intellectual sphere by the West, but their critiquing never follows any practical and useful recommendations nor does it provide any frontiers or introduce other ways of doing and thinking for the decolonial goal in education to be progressive and successful. What hinders the decolonization process in education?" And I can not give you a full answer to that, but I dare share some insights about this. The perpetuation of the Western dominance in academia is - obviously - partly rooted in a structural institutionalization of Western academia as an ideal to strive for, and the polarity of a representation of indigenous education contrary to western education. The unification of the multitude of perspectives that can come from embracing both - or even more - approaches can lead to an even richer academia than when only sticking to the western perspective, and can at the same time increase the relevance and societal embeddedness of that education. As such, one should strive for diversification of disciplines (countering "For instance, if an area specializes in agriculture, is the education that is available to them only going to be based on that career path. If so does this not lead to nationalism, regionalism and ultimately tribalism as indegenisation will be followed by fragmentation?"), integrating contextually relevant knowledge and experience, and integrating community in research as co-designers or as citizen researchers that will embrace the research outcomes. Fanon and Freire laid foundations that were all to often juxtaposed by western oriented myths of academic succes in the former colonizers academic institutions. Their approaches deserve and need further exploration and study. These approaches do not call for militarization, but for democratization and emancipation.
I totally agree! as an Arab learner whose most of my professors graduated from western universities, the belief was that you need to study in a western university to be academically respected and recognized. On the other hand, some educational fields are not fully developed in the -so called- third world educational system. therefor, the catch-up game is a must and a way to the academic independency.
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