The Challenge of Decolonizing Education

105 Pages·2018·0.815 MB·English

by  Kwesi Kwaa Prah

The Challenge of
Decolonizing
Education

Kwesi Kwaa Prah

CASAS Book Series No. 128
Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society
P.O. Box 359
Rondebosch 7701
Cape Town
South Africa
www.casas.co.za

© The Author

First Published 2018

ISBN. 978-1-920294-23-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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holder.
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements v
Preface vi

1. Has Rhodes Fallen? Decolonizing the Humanities 1
in Africa and Constructing Intellectual Sovereignty

2. The Intellectualization of African Languages for Higher Education 31

3. The Centrality of the Language Question in the Decolonization 41
of Education in Africa

4. An Outline of Decolonized Education in Africa 63

5. Observations on Literacy and Society in Africa 79

Index 87
CASAS Book Series List 93

Acknowledgements

These papers collected within the covers have been put together by staff
of The Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS). I thank
them. We also express our thanks to the various publishers/ institutions
for allowing us to reprint the papers here.

Kwesi Kwaa Prah
Cape Town,
June 2018

v
Preface

Over the past three years (2015 – 2018), the decolonization of education has become an
issue of increasing debate in South African academia. It has come as a follow-up to earlier
questions about the need to dismantle and remove Apartheid and colonial era symbols
from educational institutions. Early in the post-Apartheid era, in the mid-1990s, similar
issues were thrown up in debates. However, little by way of transformation and practical
changes occurred. It is hoped that this time round, these debates will trigger the needed
changes in the academic sphere.
Decolonization in much of Asia and Africa started at the end of the 2nd World War
and differentially dragged on till the end of the 20th century. The Western imperial powers
started beating a retreat from their far-flung colonial empires. Some of these processes
were relatively swift and orderly while others were marked by imperial hubris, obstinacy,
confrontation and bloodshed. In the end, colonial freedom could not be arrested. With
fanfare, flags and anthems new states were ushered into existence. But to different
degrees these new states bore the marks of their colonial heritage. These legacies of
imperialism certified their colonial pedigree and marked them as neocolonial products,
not only in political and economic senses, but also very insidiously in the educational and
wider cultural areas of social life. The emergent middle classes have, by and large,
extended the lease on life of the colonial legacies in education in neocolonial
representation. Neocolonial education inhibits the autonomous and fuller development
of the societies in which they hold sway. Whereas the outer emblems of colonialism, like
the names of states, flags and anthems can be easily and recognizably amended, the
deadly impact of colonial imperialism in the educational sphere is less immediately visible,
but even more pernicious and developmentally stunting.
The decolonization of education is a relevant issue for the whole of Africa. In the
rest of Africa only limited debates have been set in motion since the onset of the post-
colonial era. Indeed, African academia has been largely insensitive and non-committal
on the issue. The culture of neo-colonialism and its impact on education has been long-
standing and stubborn. To a very great degree, African academics have tended to
unwittingly treat neo-colonial assumptions, concepts and arguments as universal ideas.
vi
There has been a failure to identify and realize the extent of neo-colonial baggage in our
educational processes.
In response to the current debates, I have examined some of the outstanding items
and concepts which are reflective of the neo-colonial vestiges and residues in African
education. These papers presented here represent some of the probings that I have
undertaken in the last couple of years.
These five papers were presented on different occasions in South African institutions
of higher education. Four of them have already been published and the fifth is due to be
published as part of another volume. I have thought it fit to put them together in the
hope that they will contribute to the ongoing debates on the issue of the decolonization
of education.
Chapter 1 is a Keynote Address which was presented as the Inaugural Humanities Lecture
of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAF)’s, organized by the Human
Sciences Research Council (HSRC), presented on 20th October 2016 in Pretoria. It was
originally posted as, http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/events/assaf-lecture-book-
award.
Chapter 2 is an article which was originally presented as a Keynote Address at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Language Planning and Development Office
(ULPDO)’s Language Symposium from 19-20 October 2015, at Howard College,
Durban, on the theme: Advancing the Intellectualization of African Languages in Higher Education.
This article appears in, Alternation 24,2 (2017) 215 – 225. Electronic ISSN: 2519-5476;
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29086/2519-5476/2017/v24n2a11. The position paper
examines the challenge of how to intellectualise African languages and bring them up to
speed with the linguistic techniques of modernity and advanced contemporary thought.
Chapter 3 is a Keynote Address delivered to the 8th University of Zululand,
Humanities and Social Science Conference, 18th – 20th October, 2017. It appears in,
Alternation 24,2 (2017) 226 – 252. Electronic ISSN: 2519-5476; DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29086/2519-5476/2017/v24n2a12.
Chapter 4 is a Keynote Address, An Institutional Inaugural Seminar on the “Relevance
and Scope of the Decolonization of Education in Africa”, presented at Cape Peninsula University
Technikon (CPUT), on 25th April 2018 in Cape Town.
Chapter 5 is an article which appeared in the, Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa,
Vol.72, No.1. June 2018.

Kwesi Kwaa Prah
Cape Town,
June 2018
vii
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1

Has Rhodes Fallen? Decolonizing
the Humanities in Africa and
Constructing Intellectual
Sovereignty

Introduction
I have elected to structure my presentation around the wider meaning of the turbulent
events that began on the 9th of March 2015, which were initially directed against the
presence of a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) celebrating the memory of
the supreme architect of British colonialism in Africa, Cecil John Rhodes. The campaign
for the statue’s removal speedily attracted global attention and in its wake led to a more
generalized movement to decolonize education across South Africa. On the 9th of April
2015, following a UCT Council vote the previous night, the statue was unceremoniously
removed. The movement frequently captured national headlines throughout 2015 and
divided public opinion. It also inspired the emergence of allied and sympathetic student
movements at other universities, both within South Africa and elsewhere in the world.
Eyewitness News (South Africa) reported that;1 UCT’s Student Representative Council’s
(SRC) Ramabina Mahapa had announced his pleasure with the university management’s
speedy response. “We thought that this might be take about six months to actually come
to a conclusion, but we’re very happy that we’ve been able to speed up the process from
our side.” Ramabina Mahapa had added that, it was the first step in the process to speed

1 Rhodes statue removal ‘only the beginning’. http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/10/Rhodes-statue-
removal-only-the-beginning.
1
up transformation at the institution. “The SRC will be submitting a comprehensive
document that actually outlines the challenges and possible solutions to them.”
Writing for the education of a British audience, another observer, the novelist Amit
Chaudhuri noted: “Those who are bewildered by the movement should place it in the
context of the historic reversals that define our age. The first has to do with apartheid.
Not that apartheid has been reinstated in South Africa. But it can hardly be claimed that
it led to the opening up that was expected in 1994, given that, 21 years later, a black
professor at the University of Cape Town, could tell the Cape Times newspaper that only
5 of the university’s 200 senior professors were South African blacks.”2
The Eyewitness News report pointed out that; one of the activist students had observed
that, now that the Rhodes statue has been carted off the UCT’s campus, the next move
is to see to the posting of more black academics at the institution. Chumani Maxwele
who had triggered the weeks of protests added that; the statue’s removal is only the
beginning. “The next move is to ask the vice-chancellor of the university by the end of
next year, to have 50 percent of black South African professors and change the
curriculum of the university. That for me is the most important thing and is the hardest
challenge we’re facing.”3

Africanism and Africanization
Almost two decades, ago in a paper on related matters, I had drawn attention to the fact
that in post-colonial Africa the Africanization or localization (as it is sometimes called) of
positions which were previously held by colonial personnel does not in itself necessarily
translate as outstanding progress. It must be remembered that Africanization wherever
it has been pursued on this continent is a policy which mainly affects the fortunes of the
elites. Be that as it may, in as far as it is defined by the ascendency of previously deprived
groups and interests, it represents progress; but limited progress which needs to be
recognized for what it is. My argument in 1999 had been that; Africanization is a must, if
South Africa is to developmentally move forward. A facilitatory principle for
Africanization in South Africa is the policy of Affirmative Action. This latter principle is
necessary to redress the deliberately constructed historical imbalances of the past, which
were purposely built into the development of South African society, by the white
minority government. Coloureds and Indians should be integrally included in the

2 Amit Chaudhuri. The Real Meaning of Rhodes Must Fall. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall.
3 Rhodes statue removal ‘only the beginning’. Op cit.

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