Unsettling the Coloniality of Curriculum Reform in Uganda

• In Event: The Politics of Citation in Curriculum Studies

Abstract

Africa's education system is decontextualized and Eurocentric; therefore, a system overhaul is needed (Machakanja & Manuel, 2020) for it to reflect the realities of African communities (Osei-Tutu (2022). Consequently, it is logical that since Uganda's independence, successive postcolonial governments have taken various steps to decolonize its curriculum initially crafted by the British colonial government. Regrettably, neocolonialism and coloniality/modernity have frustrated these efforts, leading to what can be termed the reinvention of the Eurocentric wheel. This state of affairs demonstrates an exigent prerequisite for curriculum theorists to rethink the thinking behind curriculum development perpetuating coloniality, which has held African minds captive for centuries.

Theoretically, we ground our theorization of curriculum by drawing on decolonial thought. Decolonial theory highlights an explicit and direct link between the colonization of Uganda, its so-called independence, and the ongoing colonialism upheld by coloniality. It helps identify the persistence of the hierarchical nature of curriculum reform within the context of post-independence. Following Funez- Flores et al. (2022) call to read theories according to their contexts, this paper contextualizes curriculum reform historically, politically, economically, and socioculturally. I also complement decolonial theory with Ubuntu to make more visible its conceptual affordances and ethical implications.

To unsettle the usual top-down colonial modus operandi of curriculum, this conceptual paper proposes the concept of the bundle to reveal not only how the coloniality of curriculum fragmented and silences Indigenous knowledge but also to argue for the need of re-bundling, an epistemic project to reclaim and rebuild Indigenous thought. The model posits that a typical bundle comprises sticks of different sizes, shapes, heights, and colors. This composition represents the strength behind the community's collective spirit and the harmony in diversity when confronting coloniality and its ongoing disavowal of indigeneity in education systems in former colonies. This new curriculum model expounds on the synergistic approach's effectiveness in considering the distinct realities of diverse indigenous communities when discovering curriculum content. Accordingly, to contextualize Uganda's curriculum, the bundle-weaving model specifies severed relationships that need reconnection, such as the disconnection between language, parents, community, and school. This fence-mending is critical because existing literature exposes the neglect of the input from essential stakeholders, thus turning them into mere curriculum consumers, whether the content is relevant to their communities or not. In this paper, we anchor BuWe on the openness to multiple perspectives of the Decolonial theory and Ubuntu philosophy.

Finally, this article calls for the deconstruction and reconstruction of the curriculum in a decolonial way, steeped in the ecology of knowledges. This bold move will lead to Uganda’s actual self-determination and the validation of its Othered ontologies and epistemologies, thus reclaiming the legitimacy of the country’s native knowledge buried in its history.

Author

• Gonzaga Mukasa, Texas Tech University