Decolonising the Curricula: why necessary and why now

We explore why students across the world are calling for the decolonisation of the curricula and what universities can do about it.

From Cape Town to Oxford and beyond, student movements across the world calling for education to be decolonised have gained prominence over the past few years. In fact, academics have been raising concerns about the foundation of Africa scholarship as far back as 1969 at an African Studies Association in the United States. 

Simukai Chigudu (@SimuChigudu) is Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of Oxford.

Laura Mann (@balootiful) is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Development at LSE.

Lyn Ossome (@lyn_ossome) is Senior Research Fellow in the Makerere Institute of Social Research at Makerere University.

Based at LSE in Pethick-Lawrence House, the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa (@AfricaAtLSE) promotes independent academic research and teaching; open and issue-oriented debate; and evidence-based policy making. The Centre accomplishes this by connecting different social science disciplines and by working in partnership with Africa bringing African voices to the global debate.

This event forms part of the “New World (Dis)Orders” series, linked to the LSE Festival, a week-long series of events taking place from 25 February to 2 March 2019, free to attend and open to all, exploring how social science can tackle global issues. How did we get here? What are the challenges? And, importantly, how can we address them?