Decolonised Education

There has been a groundswell in South Africa, in favour of a decolonised education. I just called up some correspondence I had with a US professor on the subject, five years ago. He taught Global Christianity. The points I raised in our exchange were these: • The US curriculum tended to promote only Western approaches to Church (for instance, Church leadership, Church growth, Church worship). • It tended to exclude African approaches. • It tended to have a sensationalist attitude towards African approaches. • It tended to denigrate African academics. • And the US education tended to include what I called "surveillance" of students, which goes unnoticed in the USA, but not in Africa. OBSERVATION: There is more to decolonised education than this – but this is what this particular exchange was about. While these are “academic” points, this kind of behaviour can be very hurtful. Another professor challenged me to come up with African books as alternatives in the fields of study. I could not find any – but hundreds which had been written in the West. This is a problem, if you want to decolonise education, but have nothing to work with. I am concerned that South African seminaries at the moment are colonising their education.