Clearly, starting the PgCert course has made me thing about education more. The purpose of an educational institution; what it means to educate and teach; and the role of the educator. Amongst those queries is the role of an educational institution and its own accountability, as to what it deems to be ‘education worthy’ (i.e. worthy of disseminating throughout its institution and beyond). Part of that consideration of what is viewed as ‘education worthy’ and the shift and reconsideration of the content of what that might be, is the discourse and discussions around ‘decolonising’ education and universities.
Note: The first time I heard about such ideas was on YouTube, watching a heated discussion between students, lecturers, and senior management at a South African University concerning curriculum reform :- Institutional Critique of academic institutions. The only other Institutional Critique I had been exposed to was that concerning art, in the form of art works by artists who critiqued art institutions such as museums and art galleries. eg. The works of artists such as Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum, 1992; Andrea Fraser, Untitled, 2002; Hans Haacke, MoMA Poll, 1970; Liz Magic Lazer’s work for the Armory Show, 2013, and importantly John Latham who also critiqued (in my opinion) knowledge acquisition and the role of art education.
So, reading one of the workshop texts: Jess Crilly’s Decolonising the library: a theoretical exploration, has made me think further about the process of decolonising education; that Universities are neither neutral nor impartial spaces of learning; and also the enduring residues of colonialism in the form of coloniality. It has also made me think about Audre Lorde’s 1984 essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Although, in this essay, Lorde for the most part was considering the mechanisms of oppression with regards to the current Feminist Movement at that time, and its own failings as a movement, many of the main points of her essay can be applied to any organisation or institution which has the capacity to exert power, and in doing so create a power imbalance. e.g. any mechanisms of oppression: prejudice, racism, patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia or any other significant social imbalance of power). The need to embrace difference – how difference should not be seen as a weakness, but instead an asset and source of strength. And the need for action – the need to actively enact on embracing difference.
How do you decolonise from within? Especially within institutions which have a bias towards, or whose main functions were (are) to propagate and disseminate colonial ideology?
How do bring about change and what form does this change take?
How do you ensure that this process of change is active?
As indicated by Crilly (2019) the concern that such ideas may only amount to lip service is real; ’appearing to address the racism that is the legacy of the UK’s colonial and imperial history, without in reality achieving change’. Just like Lorde’s call to action in The Master’s Tools, it is important to ensure that those ideas and intentions are actively implemented and enacted upon; that they are an ongoing active action – as well as reconsidered, reassessed, and reappraised. But also like Lorde, I think it is important to continually question the strategies and methods used in order to do so within any university, especially when according to Mamdani (2017), ‘the university was in the frontline of the colonising civilising mission’.
Sources
Crilly, J. (2019) Decolonising the library: a theoretical exploration, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 1(4) pp 6-15
Lorde, A. (1984) The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Penguin Books
Mamdani, J. (2017)Professor Mahmood Mamdani’s TB Davie Memorial Lecture “Decolonising the Post-Colonial University”. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKFAYXf05N0 (Accessed 13 January 2026)