Decolonization of Education in South Africa: Changing How We Teach Students in Engineering and the Built Environment

• In Event: Narratives and indigenous ways of being across the African diaspora

Proposal

Engineering and the built environment, by extension, is a branch of science and technology that is primarily concerned with the designing, building and use of machines and structures to bring about something. Fundamentally, higher education and training in engineering and the built environment are based on theoretical and abstract elements that relies heavily on contextual practice and focuses mainly on productivity (Ball and Halwachi, 1987). As such, teaching engineering has become as robust as the profession demands. Teaching engineering has always been concerned with producing efficient and effective engineers who are capable and industry ready.
It is important to note that engineering practices whether professional or related to skilled trades have both explicit and tacit elements of knowledge. Universities on the other hand are formal establishments that can teach both but can only assess explicit knowledge. Teaching is a complex human activity, there is no one formula to deliver excellence. Furthermore, being an engineer or built environment specialist does not necessarily translate to good teaching practices. The predicament lies with the fact that only individuals in possession of engineering related degrees may be appointed to teach engineering, rightly so. However, institutions of teaching and learning requires more than knowledge of trade and/or field if knowledge is to be transferred successfully.
Most academics teaching engineering and built environment courses in universities have never had a formal course in education and have time and again proffered a variety of rationalization why such courses are unnecessary (Wankat and Oreovicz, 2015):
1. I didn’t need a teaching course
2. I learned how to teach by watching my teachers
3. Teaching is unimportant
4. Teaching courses have not improved teaching in educational institutions
5. Engineers need more technical courses
6. If I am a good researcher I am automatically a good teacher
7. If I need to adopt a new teaching method in my career, I will do it on my own
There are numerous reasons why the aforementioned rationalizations are perilous for individuals who are tasked with imparting knowledge to future engineers. Rejecting the idea of undertaking a teaching course simply because the individual did not need the course do not logically imply that one would not benefit from such a course. The notion that we learn to teach by observing our teachers can be misconstrued. What if our teachers were bad teachers? Even if one had good teachers observing such teachers gives one a limited range of teaching practise which may not always provide the necessary training. The fact of the matter is, everyone can improve o their teaching skills. If engineers and built environmental specialists are expected to undergo rigorous training to be proficient, it is only logical to expect rigorous training in the teaching methods of those tasked with teaching students in university.
Moreover, there is a moral imperative to decolonizing how we teach engineering in South Africa. Colonialism occurs when one nation establishes a sovereignty in another country, and it is economic and political. The hierarchal structure of colonialism is maintain through a matrix of power, and often that matrix of power is in equal. Colonialism was established to maintain hierarchies, which benefit those who are of European descent, and to ensure that Europe gained, and upheld politico-military, linguistic, religious, and cultural and gender hierarchies. South Africa, is still divided along socio-economic lines, and also the distribution of wealth overlaps alongside racial designation. South Africa has, 11 official languages(black African making up 76.4% of the population), but those languages do not have equal status when it comes to medium of instruction in schools unlike Afrikaans and English ( White Africans making up 9.1% of the population). In a utopia, if all students had equal opportunities to study engineering, the percentage of each group (race, gender) studying engineering would be equal to the percentage in the population or at least correspond (Wankat and Oreovicz, 2015). Unfortunately, even in 2018, black and female students are still underrepresented in faculties such as engineering and the built environment.
In a neoliberal globalised society (Hursh,2009) , education policy, curriculum standards and qualification mimic, an open market system, in which it is assumed that everybody can partake in it and is equal. Performance and results are seen as more important than the science of teaching, and understanding the content that is being taught. Even at tertiary level, education needs to play an economic role but also offer social justice to those previously disenfranchised by the system.
This paper aims to look at decolonization of teaching methods as used in engineering and the built environment in the South African universities. The paper describes and critically evaluates teaching philosophies adopted by members of the engineering and the built environment in South African universities.
By means of decoloniality theories, which looks at what the legacy of colonialism is, and how it is maintained through coloniality where western knowledge is deemed universal. We can begin to understand how to create an all inclusive class room led by good engineering teachers who cater to the personal needs of each student in the course (Christie and McKinney, 2018). Using decoloniality theory, actual progress can be made in addressing the maintenance of apartheid legacy in South African schools. This will enable institutions to embrace new forms of teaching that is aligned with improved standard of care when it comes to how academics approach teaching and improving engineering programmes in South African universities.

Author

• Zanele Matsane, University of Johannesburg