Decolonise Higher Education Curriculum: Revisiting Our Knowledge
This essay won first place in the Essay Writing Competition by Education Fest PPI United Kingdom 2022
This essay will discuss the future of Indonesian education, focusing on the decolonisation of higher education. The call to decolonise education has gained traction in academia, particularly in the Global North. This essay argues that Indonesia must decolonise its education system, starting with the higher education curriculum. This article will begin by quickly outlining what decolonisation is, how the push for decolonising curriculum began, and why it is essential. Furthermore, this study will consider how Indonesia could decolonise its higher education by drawing on the experiences of other countries. Finally, this essay will examine one example of Western knowledge to demonstrate the necessity of decolonising the curriculum.
Decolonisation refers to natives’ actions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the second half of the twentieth century to regain control of the state from colonial powers (Tsang, 2021). On the other hand, recent decolonising trends are concerned with decolonising ourselves and our minds (Tsang, 2021). Recent decolonisation arose from the recognition that colonisation is about more than just territorial control. Instead, colonisation shaped how we think about the world by imposing Eurocentric knowledge on their colonies (Le Grange, 2019). While there are many different interpretations of decolonisation, it generally aims to deconstruct the Western hegemonic paradigm and centre indigenous knowledge (Mahabeer, 2018). So, why should we decolonise higher education in particular? Universities in the West were complicit in colonialism by providing ethical and intellectual grounds for colonial oppression (Bhambra et al., 2018). In addition, higher education institutions, notably in the Global South, were primarily created by colonisers in accordance with the Western higher education system. As a result, Whiteness thought dominated the higher education curriculum.
Global concern for decolonising curriculum started in 2015 with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which demanded the statue of Cecil Rhodes–colonisers–to be removed from the campus. A similar movement occurred at the University of Oxford and other universities in the United Kingdom. Students at UK universities also launched campaigns such as ‘Why My Curriculum is White?’ and ‘Why isn’t my lecturer Black?’. Such movements pointed out institutional and cultural problems inside UK universities and urged the university to decolonise the curriculum (Bhambra et al., 2018).
Growing demands for curriculum decolonisation indicate compelling reasons to decolonise higher education. Some people who are unfamiliar with postcolonial and decolonial perspectives may wonder, “Why should we decolonise curriculum if the Western perspective is more advanced?” This viewpoint is flawed in various ways. First, it assumes that the West is more civilised and developed than their colonies, reinforcing the idea of white superiority. Second, it believes Western knowledge is universal (Le Grange, 2019) and applicable to all world regions, which is not the case, as this essay will show later. Third, it ignores–or worse, subordinates–the knowledge of colonised peoples (Le Grange, 2019), favouring white, male, Western, capitalist, and heterosexual worldviews (Shay, 2016, as cited in Arday et al., 2021). Hence, decolonisation of the curriculum is critical in Indonesia, a country whose constitution preamble explicitly condemns colonialism. Decolonisation of the curriculum is compatible with the present Ministry of Education and Culture’s idea of ‘Kampus Merdeka’ or “Independent Campus”. Instead of focusing solely on the ability to learn anywhere, Kampus Merdeka should decolonize its curriculum, allowing students to be free of Eurocentric knowledge.
While it is critical to decolonise the curriculum, how we should do so is still up for discussion. There is no single solution, and many universities implement different approaches. However, Indonesia could relate to a few fundamental understandings. First, decolonisation should focus on classroom materials as well as the entire higher education system, including staff and student composition. Second, decolonisation cannot be done simply by adding non-white scholars to the reading list, nor does it imply that white man articles will be removed from the list (Begum and Saini, 2019). Third, decolonisation differs from diversity in that it attempts to dismantle power structures in the production and dissemination of knowledge, allowing new knowledge from marginalised groups to proliferate (Begum and Saini, 2019). Decolonisation should also investigate the dynamics of power relations between the Global North and the Global South to determine why such Eurocentric knowledge has persisted until now (Jansen, 2019).
The concept of development is an example of how hegemonic Western knowledge operates. Many countries, especially those in the Global South, followed the Western development path to become advanced countries. We implement industrialisation, urbanisation, and modernisation of agriculture. Economic growth, GDP, and other statistical indicators are used to assess our development progress. Western development discourses have become so entrenched in our consciousness that we fail to acknowledge alternatives to Western development. Some scholars have explored why this is problematic. First, it is predicated on the idea of Western superiority. Global South countries are regarded as ‘backwards’ and ‘uncivilised’ and hence must follow the Western development route to attain ‘economic progress’ toward ‘modernity’ and thus become developed countries (Escobar, 1995). Second, Western development practices are founded on unique European experiences. When it was imposed to make it universal, it suppressed other development methods, namely the indigenous ways of living, and created a regime to control Third World countries (Escobar, 1995). Third, top-down Western development failed to deliver on its promise of wealth by disregarding local needs (Matthews, 2018). Instead, it exacerbates global disparities across states, damages the environment, and disconnects local populations from their roots.
There are numerous case studies of such top-down development schemes in Indonesia. Following Eurocentric development discourses, Jakarta-centric development projects, such as the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) project in West Papua, harm indigenous people in many places. The Indonesian government ignores that indigenous people have their own way of life. Instead, the government encouraged indigenous people to achieve ‘modernity’ through agricultural modernisation. As a result, the MIFEE initiative compelled indigenous people to work on the food estate, disrupting their traditional method of gathering food in the forest (Chao, 2021). In addition, indigenous peoples suffer from malnutrition due to being forced to consume ‘modern’ foods (Chao, 2021). Thus, this study emphasises the urgency to centre indigenous knowledge into our curriculum in order to counteract detrimental Western worldviews. Scholars in Latin America coined the word pluriverse, which envisions the world having alternatives to Western ‘universal’ knowledge.
To conclude, Indonesia’s higher education curriculum must be decolonised. While universities in other countries pursue their own decolonisation, it is crucial for the government to protect such initiatives since many universities face institutional barriers to decolonising the curriculum (Jansen, 2019). Through their association, each field of study in Indonesia might revisit their knowledge to discover ways to analyse the underlying power dynamics in Western knowledge and centre knowledge from marginalised groups. Again, decolonising the curriculum does not imply eradicating Western viewpoints but raising the knowledge of the Global South, including Indonesia.
References
Arday, J., Zoe Belluigi, D., & Thomas, D. (2020). Attempting to break the chain: reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy. Educational Philosophy And Theory, 53(3), 298–313. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2020.1773257
Begum, N., & Saini, R. (2019). Decolonising the Curriculum. Political Studies Review, 17(2).
Bhambra, G. (2018). Introduction: Decolonising the University?. In G. Bhambra, Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press.
Chao, S. (2021) ‘Gastrocolonialism: the intersections of race, food, and development in West Papua’, The International Journal of Human Rights, pp. 4–8. doi: 10.1080/13642987.2021.1968378.
Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of The Third World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Jansen, J. (2019). Making Sense of Decolonisation in Universities. In J. Jansen, Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge. South Africa: Wits University Press.
Le Grange, L. (2019). The Curriculum Case for Decolonisation. In J. Jansen, Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge. South Africa: Wits University Press.
Mahabeer, P. (2018). Curriculum decision-makers on decolonising the teacher education curriculum. South African Journal Of Education, 38(4), 1–13. doi: 10.15700/saje.v38n4a1705
Matthews, S. (2018). Postdevelopment Theory. Oxford Research Encyclopedia Of International Studies. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.39
Tsang, M. (2021). Decolonial? Postcolonial? What does it mean to ‘decolonise ourselves’? — Decolonising Modern Languages and Cultures. Retrieved 10 May 2022, from https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/decolonisesml/2021/01/21/decolonial-postcolonial-what-does-it-mean-to-decolonise-ourselves/
