UCT establishes curriculum task team
UCT has established a task team which will facilitate debates across the university community about the changes required to curricula.
|||Cape Town - UCT has taken the next step in its efforts to transform its curricula by establishing a task team which will facilitate debates across the university community about the changes required.
In a recent communique to staff and students, vice-chancellor Dr Max Price said although "considerable work" on decolonising the curriculum had already been done within the university, he felt this had been "somewhat patchy".
He said more needed to be done to ensure that debates and discussions about the changes needed in the curriculum and pedagogy took place across the university.
"As a result I have set up a Curriculum Change Working Group to facilitate a process for the whole UCT community to engage in critical curriculum transformation."
In a statement last year the Rhodes Must Fall movement said one of its long-term goals was to have a curriculum implemented "which critically centres Africa".
"By this we mean treating African discourses as the point of departure - through addressing not only content, but languages and methodologies of education and learning - and only examining western traditions in so far as they are relevant to our own experience."
In his communique, Price said that last year UCT faculties had convened assemblies to ascertain issues in relation to transformation for staff and students.
"Many concerns were raised about the marginalisation and exclusion of particular identities and scholarly traditions."
He said there had also been calls to create more opportunities to expose students to ways of thinking associated with disciplines beyond their primary areas of specialisation, for example, for humanities students to be able to understand and evaluate scientific and statistical arguments, and commerce students to be able to engage in moral and ethical reasoning and consider environmental issues.
Price said the group was made up of people with considerable experience, knowledge and expertise "related to the development of contextually relevant curricula and the use of inclusive and generative pedagogies".
It is co-chaired by Professor Harry Garuba, who is the acting deputy dean: research and postgraduate affairs and acting director: School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics, and Associate Professor Elelwani Ramugondo whose speciality is occupational therapy.
Other members include the Rhodes Must Fall movement's Brian Kamanzi and the student representative council president Rorisang Moseli.
The terms of reference for the group, which outline, among other things, the timelines and major deliverables, have been published online.
Price said the team would work in close collaboration with a bigger team comprising faculty academic representatives, student representatives from faculty councils as well as academics and students.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus