1 Internationalisation and Decolonisation: Friends or Foes?
South Africa’s public higher education system has global ambitions, with most of its universities striving to solidify their place on the global stage. These global
This chapter investigates whether the demands of internationalisation necessarily stand in conflict with those of decolonisation? To answer this question, it critically discusses what is meant by internationalisation and decolonisation, particularly in the South African literature, and analyses whether these two processes are incompatible. The chapter explains how, conceived in conventional ways, internationalisation of curricula seems to undermine the decolonial goals of challenging Eurocentrism. It then critically discusses Kwasi Wiredu’s conception of decolonisation, showing how, in this conception, internationalisation is an intrinsic feature of decolonisation. The overall conclusion is that internationalisation is not necessarily in tension with decolonisation.
2 Calls to Decolonise Curricula in South African Universities
Almost thirty years into democracy, the South African higher education system has experienced significant growth and many achievements in the higher education sector. One main achievement is greater access and diversity in the demography of students in South African universities. However, many challenges pervade the system because of its historical legacies of colonialism and apartheid. The “fallist” movements (#FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall) of 2015/16 gave expression to some of the key challenges faced by South African higher education and brought about a renewed interest in the call for transforming universities under the banner of decolonisation. These calls for decolonisation emerged out of growing frustrations with underfunding issues in higher education in the context of increasing enrolment growth of poor students, dissatisfaction with what and how students are taught, and critiques of
South African higher education, because of the historical baggage of colonialism and apartheid, is tasked with redressing past inequalities and transforming the higher education system to serve a new social order, to meet pressing national needs, and to respond to new realities and opportunities (Department of Education, 1997). Many aspects of universities in South Africa have been identified as targets for decolonisation. One aspect that has been the subject of much critique are curricula. The kind of knowledge that is taught and the ways in which it is organised and delivered to students remain a central concern for decolonisation movements. One principal contention by proponents of decolonisation is that “curriculum content is dominated by – to name some – white, male, western, capitalist, heterosexual, European worldviews. It under-represents and excludes the perspectives, experiences, epistemologies of those who do not fit into these mainstream categories” (Shay, 2016).
they aspire to become local instantiations of a dominant academic model based on a Eurocentric epistemic canon – a canon that attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge production, disregards other epistemic traditions, and portrays colonialism as a normal form of social relations between human beings rather than a system of exploitation and oppression. (Mbembe, 2016, p. 32)
These westernised academic institutions are “disconnected from African realities, including the lived experiences of the majority of black South Africans” (Le Grange, 2016). Hence, calls for decolonisation bemoan the systematic exclusion and marginalisation of African-centred approaches to knowledge from curricula in South African universities (Fataar & Subreenduth, 2015).
education through schools and other formal institutions of learning in Africa is largely a process of making infinite concessions to the outside – mainly the western world. Such education has tended to emphasize mimicry over creativity, and the idea that little worth learning about, even by Africans, can come from Africa.
Nyamnjoh presents a scathing critique of the uncritical domestication of “western” models of education which compels Africans to conform, stifles creativity and a multiplicity of perspectives, and invariably results in graduates who are “excellent at irrelevance” (Nyamnjoh, 2012, p. 8).
This brief discussion of the decolonial critiques of South African university curricula highlights that curricula in universities are dominated by “western” knowledge and practices and largely lack “African” elements. In some sense, then, the curriculum at South African universities is international because it is dominated by European and American scholarship, scholars, and worldviews (Heleta, 2023, p. 826). In so far as Europe and America are the dominant forces in determining what is “international,” the Euro-American elements that are argued to dominate curricula in South African universities are what makes them international. The almost exclusive use of English in South Africa and other European languages in many previously colonised parts of Africa as the primary language of universities is one example of international elements dominating universities in Africa.
To answer the central question of whether the calls for decolonisation and internationalisation of the curricula that exert demands on South African universities are in conflict with one another, such that the pursuit of one compromises the pursuit of the other, it is crucial to be clear about what
3 Conceptualising Internationalisation
The internationalisation of higher education has been an influential trend on universities in Africa with the rise of globalisation. Traditional forms of internationalisation of universities include: student and staff mobility, international research collaborations and networks, participation and excellence in global university rankings, the inclusion and integration of international elements in teaching and research practice, joint provision of qualifications, etc. For most universities, the key promise of internationalisation is global recognition: internationalising promises to enhance the global reputation and visibility of African universities. More substantively, and in line with the knowledge project of the university, internationalisation can be a way to recognise and exploit the diversity and richness of the world in the development of innovative solutions to the challenges posed by our interconnected worlds. Internationalisation is thus seen as the pursuit of world-class quality higher education and an opportunity to draw from global best practices in research and teaching.
the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff and to make a meaningful contribution to society. (De Wit et al., 2015, 29)
In line with this broader definition, internationalisation of the curriculum involves the intentional “incorporation of international, intercultural and global dimensions into the content of the curriculum as well as the learning outcomes, assessment tasks, teaching methods and support services of a program of study” (Leask, 2015, p. 9). The internationalised curriculum reflects the global diversity of knowledge, ideas, perspectives and ways of being.
A few core aspects of internationalisation are important to note in the definition above. Firstly, internationalisation is an intentional process; it does not happen automatically. Internationalisation thus should not be confused with the mere presence of international components in curricula. As has been
intentional or steered process to incorporate intercultural, international and/or global dimensions into higher education in order to advance the goals, functions and delivery of higher education and thus to enhance the quality of education and research. (Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET], 2019, p. 9)
The internationalisation of the curriculum is similarly defined as “the incorporation of intercultural, international and/or global dimensions into the content of the curriculum as well as into the learning outcomes, assessment tasks, teaching methods and support services of a programme of study” (DHET, 2019, p. 9).
the positioning of South Africa’s higher education sector to be competitive in a globalized world, the advancement of the quality of higher
education, enhancing intellectual diversity, contributing to scholarship capable of addressing global challenges as well as the benefiting of society at large and enhancing opportunities for higher education to contribute to the public good. (DHET, 2019, p. 20)
Still, the department of higher education maintains that “internationalisation of the curriculum must not negate curriculum transformation imperatives that higher education institutions in South Africa have an obligation to fulfil; the two can be carried out together successfully” (DHET, 2019, p. 45). Although universities in South Africa are free to design and implement their own internationalisation policies and plans, the policy framework is meant to outline some of the broad principles and values that should guide internationalisation in South African higher education institutions (DHET, 2019, p. 19). Even without a binding mandate, the policy framework is an important document to consider when thinking about how internationalisation of higher education is envisioned on a national level. Recently, some higher education scholars in South Africa have criticised that the conception of internationalisation underpinning the policy framework is highly problematic and likely to fail in shaping truly internationalised universities in South Africa.
DHET’s copying of the Eurocentric definitions of internationalisation; lack of a critical discussion about the historical and contemporary global and South African higher education and internationalisation contexts; and the primary focus of the framework on operational and technical issues instead of epistemic plurality.
For Heleta (2023, p. 828) the policy framework “reads like an operational and administrative manual for internationalisation, focusing on student and staff mobility, generation of revenue through internationalisation, joint degrees, MOUs and the reporting requirements.” The fundamental epistemological issues of the politics and inequalities that mar theories and practices of knowledge in universities are glossed over with references to the broad call for the “advancement of all forms of knowledge and scholarship” (Heleta, 2023, p. 821). The current debates about the politics of global knowledge are disappointingly absent in the policy framework. This illustrates a decontextualised approach to the development of the policy framework. The failure of the policy framework to foreground epistemic issues about the ways in which global
It is surprising that the resurgent issue decolonisation did not inform the policy framework, especially because the development and release of the policy coincided with the decolonisation movements and debates that followed.1 The policy framework does not engage sufficiently and explicitly with decolonisation. Although the framework addresses issues related to decolonisation – that is, transformation and Africanisation – the term decolonisation is absent in the document. Chasi (2021, p. 31) explains that by not engaging internationalisation in conversation with decolonisation, “the policy missed an opportunity to … imagine internationalisation differently from the perspective of the Global South.”2 In similar vein, Heleta (2023, p. 828) concludes that because of the administrative focus and neglect of the pressing epistemological concerns raised in calls for decolonisation, DHET’s policy framework does not provide guidance for reconceptualising internationalisation so that it contributes to dismantling coloniality and Eurocentric hegemony and promoting epistemic pluralism in South African higher education.
The implicit point is that a decolonial conception of internationalisation, which understands the risk that global and intercultural elements could be integrated in ways that promote Eurocentric tendencies in curricula, is necessary. Eurocentric conceptualisations of internationalisation, Heleta (2023, p. 824) criticises, largely interpret it in “abstract and apolitical” ways which hide the politics and inequalities that define the global production of knowledge. Such conceptualisations do not engage with the ways in which the highly unequal and unjust constitution of the “international” shape education and therefore internationalisation (Heleta, 2022).
Internationalisation of higher education is a critical and comparative process of the study of the world and its complexities, past and present inequalities and injustices, and possibilities for a more equitable and just future for all. Through teaching, learning, research and engagement, internationalisation fosters epistemic plurality and integrates critical, antiracist and anti-hegemonic learning about the world from diverse global perspectives to enhance the quality and relevance of education. (Heleta & Chasi, 2022, pp. 269–270)
This proposed conception of internationalisation is argued not only to be the most effective in introducing the benefits of foreign elements to curricula in African universities but, crucially, in producing knowledge that foregrounds the inequalities and injustices in the constitution of the world, thereby ensuring that education is of enhanced quality and relevance as well as striving towards global justice and equality. This reformulated conceptualisation offers a more substantive look at what an internationalised curriculum should consist of instead of only addressing its implementation at an administrative level. In contrast to the mainstream definition of internationalisation as a process of integrating intercultural/global dimensions into curricula, this reformulation emphasises the content of the global aspects that should be integrated: they should critically engage past and present global injustices and inequalities and look at how these can be overcome for a more equitable and just future for all. The global justice agenda of internationalising curricula is central in the reconceptualised decolonial definition of internationalisation.
4 Internationalisation and Decolonisation: Necessary Conflict?
Today, internationalisation and decolonisation are high on the agenda of South African universities. Internationalisation primarily takes the form of securing partnerships with other universities, research collaborations, recruitment of international students, promoting academic mobility, and branding universities as globally competitive through participation in global rankings. At face value, internationalisation appears to call for a global orientation and thus seems in tension with the requirement for local relevance foregrounded in decolonisation. This apparent tension raises the question of how to achieve a balance between being locally relevant and globally recognised as up to standard and competitive (Webbstock, 2016, p. 15).
In relation to curricula, internationalisation involves the inclusion of foreign knowledge, ideas, and practices in teaching and learning. On the other
To be sure, the apparent tension between local relevance and global recognition could foster the impression that locally relevant curricula might have little value or relevance in the global context. This is not necessarily so. Moreover, it is crucial to emphasise that internationalisation is about “integrating” global elements; not necessarily “replacing” the local elements in higher education. Put simply, the integration of global elements could be compatible with prioritising local forms of knowledge. Still, scholars who bemoan the outward orientation of South African university curricula and their preoccupation with mimicking “western” models might suspect that internationalisation means incorporating more foreign elements in curricula that are already international. The rhetoric of the need to internationalise and become globally competitive might perpetuate what Nyamnjoh (2012, p. 8) describes as “an excessive orientation and appetite for all things ‘western’.” Put differently, internationalisation touted in terms of global competitiveness belies the western-modelled and oriented nature of education in Africa. This sort of education produces Africans who are “excellent at being irrelevant for Africa,” as they consume the types of knowledge that alienates them from everything to do with Africa. Heleta (2023, p. 826) remarks that for South African universities especially “internationalisation practices and activities have copied Eurocentric concepts and approaches, favouring engagement and collaboration with the global North while sidelining the collaborative and epistemic engagements with the African continent and other parts of the global South.”3
Internationalisation, then, might belie the continuance of Eurocentric education which tends to produce Africans who are incapable of being adequately
To be clear, the important question, in my view, is not whether we should internationalise or decolonise. We ought to heed and take seriously the calls to decolonise and internationalise for the sake of achieving relevant quality education and global justice in our globally interconnected world. The important question, in my view, pertains to the appropriate ways, and to what extent, we take up the demands of internationalisation and decolonisation. As the scholars considered above have rightly pointed out, conceptualisations of internationalisation of curricula in South African universities must take seriously the politics of global knowledge and the inequalities that shape the production, dissemination, and use of the diverse knowledges across the world. The Eurocentrism of South African university curricula which manifests in the dominance of “western” knowledge and ideas cannot be denied. At the same time, great caution must be taken that the legitimate concern over the pervasive Eurocentrism in curricula does not result in a default rejection of all foreign elements. A blanket hostility of this kind would undermine African universities’ agency to appropriate the knowledge of the world for its own local purposes and deprive it of the world’s epistemic richness (Táíwò, 2022).
Wiredu’s “conceptual decolonisation” provides a model of decolonising that can help us think about how to facilitate the critical and selective integration of foreign elements in curricula that does not undermine but enhances the prioritisation of local knowledge and ideas. To forestall misunderstanding, Wiredu’s thoughts on decolonisation aimed at rethinking teaching, learning, and research in the discipline of philosophy in Africa specifically. However, the insights are valuable and informative for thinking about curricula in other subjects, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
avoiding or reversing through a critical conceptual self-awareness the unexamined assimilation in African thought of the conceptual frameworks embedded in the foreign philosophical traditions that have had an impact on African life and thought as well as a positive aspect which entails a synthesis of the resources of our own indigenous conceptual schemes in our philosophical meditations on even the most technical problems of contemporary philosophy. (Wiredu, 1996, p. 136)
consists in an African divesting his thought of all modes of conceptualization emanating from the colonial past that cannot stand the test of due reflection. This divesture does not mean automatically repudiating every mode of thought having a colonial provenance. That would be absurd beyond description. What it calls for is the reviewing of any such thought materials in the light of indigenous categories, as a first step, and, as a second, evaluating them on independent grounds. (Wiredu, 2004, p. 15)
Wiredu proposes, through his notion of conceptual decolonisation, that Africans must develop curricula suited for our present-day Africa by exploiting knowledge resources available from our diverse African cultures and foreign cultures. Importantly, Wiredu insists that it is especially crucial that we divest ourselves of knowledge and conceptual resources that came to us through colonisation and remain in our thinking due to inertia rather than from critical reflection on their usefulness for present day African existence. The quest to decolonise African education is an attempt to guard it against its tendency
According to Wiredu (2002), we should divest from knowledge, especially “western” knowledge, that is reminiscent of the goals of colonial education and no longer serves the goals of present-day Africa. This does not mean that no “western” knowledge is useful for Africa, but that it must be found worthy of remaining in our curricula in relation to the goals and needs of postcolonial Africa. More broadly, this proposes a particular attitude and rationale in how internationalisation – the integration of knowledge and cultures from other places in our curricula – should be taken up: internationalisation should be framed against measures of relevance and usefulness for the South African context. At the same time, we must source epistemic and conceptual resources from our own cultures that can help us shape the Africa we want to create. Internationalisation efforts must pass the test of usefulness for Africa. What this means is difficult to specify. But in the field of philosophy, Wiredu thought that decolonisation must ultimately lead to African self-knowledge and help Africa hold its own in the competition of cultures.
Overall, Wiredu sees decolonisation as already involving the critical appropriation of foreign elements in curricula. In other words, internationalisation is already an intrinsic aspect of decolonisation. In so far as decolonisation responds to colonisation – the forceful and unfair introduction and preservation of foreign elements in education – it already presupposes engagement with the “international.” Wiredu’s decolonisation is an approach that combines internationalising curricula and redressing past epistemic injustice in knowledge. The approach proposes that curricula in African universities be transformed by critically appropriating both local and foreign knowledge to meet the standards and needs of Africa. The apparent tension between decolonisation and internationalisation disappears in Wiredu’s conception of decolonisation: internationalisation is an intrinsic aspect of decolonisation.
5 Conclusion
It is by now a truism that colonial power relations have structured global knowledge production in skewed favour of European thought. The concerns
Notes
The development of the policy framework took place, approximately, between 2015–2019 (Heleta, 2022).
There are other scholars who acknowledge that internationalisation should not be considered from exclusively western perspectives (Jones & de Wit, 2014, p. 28).
Some manifestations of this excessive “western” orientation of African universities include: universities being ranked internationally and rated using criteria which few universities in Africa have contributed to establishing, requiring academics to publish in international journals and not promoting journals of the continent, students’ selection of universities being determined by where their lecturers obtained PhD degrees but hardly by the relevance of curricula to local needs (Nyamnjoh, 2012, p. 9).
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