Parallel Session

This is Quality as I see It: Straddling the Margins of Policies and Decolonial Works

Abstract

The call for the inclusion of ways of knowing that have been relegated to the margins is not only a moral imperative but a cause for justice. Since 2015, the South African academy has embarked on self-introspection that has resulted in several transformative initiatives and programmes in various universities as well as within UNISA. Purporting itself as “African university shaping futures in service of Humanity”, UNISA prides itself for its endeavours to make the academy a more just space. This working paper seeks to juxtapose some of the university’s assertions through its mission and vision, as well as programmes against policies and existing templates. While recognising the university’s successes in the transformation agenda; this paper asserts that the struggle for a decolonised quality education cannot be realised if university policies do not rise up to the challenge. This is to say, the university cannot encourage and require academics to do decolonial work if they in turn will get strangled by policies and templates that refuse to transform. In particular, this paper will analyse UNISA’s Teaching and Learning festival policy documents in juxtaposition to the decolonial agenda espoused in the university’s mission and vision statement. I argue here that in order to incorporate different ways of knowing and be-ing; our language, views and use of terminology must transform fundamentally to make space for diverse ways of expression. 

Key words: transformation, decoloniality, policy, teaching and learning, epistemology