Honours and fourth year students’ understanding of the benefits of the decolonised history curriculum in South Africa: a case study at wits school of education

Abstract

Decolonisation discourse in quantities of literature in South Africa background the positive results that came out of the 2015/16 Fees Must Fall Movements, especially concerning the decolonised history curriculum. The lack of literature on the decolonised history curriculum after the Fees Must Fall Movements is depriving history learners and students ability to understand the local, relevant history that is interlinked with the current socio-economic and political issues in the country. Given this, I seek to investigate Wits School of Education 2021 History IV students and 2021 Honours history, students ‘Understanding of the Benefits of the Decolonised History Curriculum’. It is important to point out these benefits because the participants (history students) will soon enter their teaching profession some are already qualified practicing teachers. Thus, their understanding will reflect the pedagogy they will implement and their current pedagogy for the qualified practicing teachers in their history classrooms in South African schools. In this study, data generation, and collection will firstly be through literature review, and secondly through semi-structured interviews with the first eight (8) willing participants. The findings of the study reveal that participants understood decolonisation, decolonisation of the history curriculum, and its benefits thereof at Wits through the content they were taught in the history courses. This, therefore, firstly indicates that most school history teachers are not well versed with the discourse of decolonisation which affects their pedagogy. Secondly, it indicates that the discourse of decolonisation is not getting the publicity it deserves through literature and any other possible forms.