Introduction – Part II Decolonising the university curriculum given a dysfunctional school system?

Abstract

I recently had occasion to visit one of the top girls' schools in Zimbabwe. This high school of young black women produced some of the leading graduates in the sciences and mathematics on the continent. Their matriculants could be found top of class in South Africa's leading research universities in math-requirement disciplines like actuarial science, human genetics and computer science. Since I was early I wandered through the school grounds and found myself in the simple but spacious school chapel. Behind the seats in every pew there was a Christian hymn book, as could be expected in an independent church school that survived both colonial rule and the nominally Marxist government following independence. I sat down, opened the hymn book and there was the opening song: 'God save our gracious King'. If this school was in South Africa during the student protest movement, I thought to myself, there was a good chance the hymnals would be burnt, if not the chapel, in the name of decolonisation. That the school produced outstanding black graduates in challenging disciplines would be irrelevant.