Shortly after the giant bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes came down at the University of Cape Town, student protestors called for the decolonisation of universities. It was a word hardly heard in South Africa's struggle lexicon and many asked: What exactly is decolonisation? This book brings together some of the most innovative thinking on curriculum theory to address this important question.

In the process, several critical questions are raised:

• Is decolonisation simply a slogan for addressing other pressing concerns on campuses and in society?
• What is the colonial legacy with respect to curricula and can it be undone?
• How is the project of curricula decolonisation similar to or different from the quest for post-colonial knowledge, indigenous knowledge or a critical theory of knowledge?
• What does decolonisation mean in a digital age where relationships between knowledge and power are shifting?

Strong conceptual analyses are combined with case studies of attempts to `do decolonisation' in settings as diverse as South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Mauritius. This comparative perspective enables reasonable judgments to be made about the prospects for institutional take-up within the curriculum of century-old universities. Decolonisation in Universities is essential reading for undergraduate teaching, postgraduate research and advanced scholarship in the field of curriculum studies.

In South African higher education, the images of dysfunction are everywhere. Student protests. Violence. Police presence. Rubber or real bullets. Class disruptions. Burning tyres. Damaged buildings. Injury and sometimes death. Reports of wholesale corruption. Year after year, often in the same set of universities; the problem of routine instability seems insoluble. The financial, academic and reputational costs of ongoing dysfunction are high, especially for those universities caught-up in the never-ending struggle to overcome apartheid legacies. Any number of explanations have been ventured, including a lack of resources, shortage of capacity, rural location, corrupt officials, and endemic conflict. Corrupted takes a deeper look at dysfunction in an attempt to unravel the root causes in a sample of South African universities.

At the heart of the problem lies the vexed issue of resources or, more pertinently, the relationship between resources and power: who gets what, and why? Whatever else it aspires to be - commonly, a place of teaching, learning, research and public duty - a university in an impoverished community is also a rich concentration of resources around which corrupt staff, students and those outside of campus all vie for access.

Taking a political economic approach, Jonathan Jansen describes the daily struggle for institutional resources and offers accessible, sensible insights. He argues that the problem won't be solved through investments in 'capacity building' alone because the combination of institutional capacity and institutional integrity contributes to serial instability in universities. Rather, durable solutions would include the depoliticisation of university councils and appointments of academics with integrity and capacity to manage and lead these fragile institutions.

This groundbreaking and long overdue study will offer a promising way forward for universities to better serve their communities and the country more broadly.

Steve Biko, the founder of the Black Consciousness philosophy, was killed in prison on 12 September 1977. Biko was only thirty years old, but his ideas and political activities changed the course of South African history and helped hasten the end of apartheid. The year 2007 saw the thirtieth anniversary of Biko's death. To mark the occasion, the then Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Mosibudi Mangena, commissioned Chris van Wyk to compile an anthology of essays as a tribute to the great South African son. Among the contributors are Minister Mangena himself, ex-President Thabo Mbeki, writer Darryl Accone, journalists Lizeka Mda and Bokwe Mafuna, academics Jonathan Jansen, Mandla Seleoane and Saths Cooper, a friend of Biko's and former president of Azapo. We Write What We Like proudly echoes the title of Biko's seminal work, I Write What I Like. It is a gift to a new generation which enjoys freedom, from one that was there when this freedom was being fought for. And it celebrates the man whose legacy is the freedom to think and say and write what we like.

This volume brings together many of South Africa's leading scholars of education and covers the full range of South African schooling: from financing and policy reform to in-depth discussions of literacy, numeracy, teacher development and curriculum change. The book moves beyond a historical analysis and provides an inside view of the questions South African scholars are now grappling with: Are there different and preferential equilibria we have not yet thought of or explored, and if so what are they? In practical terms, how does one get to a more equitable distribution of teachers, resources and learning outcomes? While decidedly local, these questions resonate throughout the developing world. South Africa today is the most unequal country in the world. The richest 10% of South Africans lay claim to 65% of national income and 90% of national wealth. This is the largest 90-10 gap in the world, and one that is reflected in the schooling system. Two decades after apartheid it is still the case that the life chances of most South African children are determined not by their ability or the result of hard-work and determination, but instead by the colour of their skin, the province of their birth, and the wealth of their parents. Looking back on almost three decades of democracy in South Africa, it is this stubbornness of inequality and its patterns of persistence that demands explanation, justification and analysis. "This is a landmark book on basic education in South Africa, an essential volume for those interested in learning outcomes and their inequality in South Africa. The various chapters present conceptually and empirically sophisticated analyses of learning outcomes across divisions of race, class, and place. The book brings together the wealth of decades of research output from top quality researchers to explore what has improved, what has not, and why." Prof Lant Pritchett, Harvard University "There is much wisdom in this collection from many of the best education analysts in South Africa. No surprise that they conclude that without a large and sustained expansion in well-trained teachers, early childhood education, and adequate school resources, South Africa will continue to sacrifice its people's future to maintaining the privileges of the few." Prof Martin Carnoy, Stanford University "Altogether, one can derive from this very valuable volume, if not an exact blueprint for the future, then certainly at least a crucial and evidence-based itinerary for the next few steps." Dr Luis Crouch, RTI

This book tells the story of white South African students--how they remember and enact an Apartheid past they were never part of. How is it that young Afrikaners, born at the time of Mandela's release from prison, hold firm views about a past they never lived, rigid ideas about black people, and fatalistic thoughts about the future? Jonathan Jansen, the first black dean of education at the historically white University of Pretoria, was dogged by this question during his tenure, and "Knowledge in the Blood" seeks to answer it.
Jansen offers an intimate look at the effects of social and political change after Apartheid as white students first experience learning and living alongside black students. He reveals the novel role pedagogical interventions played in confronting the past, as well as critical theory's limits in dealing with conflict in a world where formerly clear-cut notions of victims and perpetrators are blurred.
While Jansen originally set out simply to convey a story of how white students changed under the leadership of a diverse group of senior academics, "Knowledge in the Blood" ultimately became an unexpected account of how these students in turn changed him. The impact of this book's unique, wide-ranging insights in dealing with racial and ethnic divisions will be felt far beyond the borders of South Africa.

This volume brings together many of South Africa's leading scholars of education and covers the full range of South African schooling: from financing and policy reform to in-depth discussions of literacy, numeracy, teacher development and curriculum change. The book moves beyond a historical analysis and provides an inside view of the questions South African scholars are now grappling with: Are there different and preferential equilibria we have not yet thought of or explored, and if so what are they? In practical terms, how does one get to a more equitable distribution of teachers, resources and learning outcomes? While decidedly local, these questions resonate throughout the developing world. South Africa today is the most unequal country in the world. The richest 10% of South Africans lay claim to 65% of national income and 90% of national wealth. This is the largest 90-10 gap in the world, and one that is reflected in the schooling system. Two decades after apartheid it is still the case that the life chances of most South African children are determined not by their ability or the result of hard-work and determination, but instead by the colour of their skin, the province of their birth, and the wealth of their parents. Looking back on almost three decades of democracy in South Africa, it is this stubbornness of inequality and its patterns of persistence that demands explanation, justification and analysis. "This is a landmark book on basic education in South Africa, an essential volume for those interested in learning outcomes and their inequality in South Africa. The various chapters present conceptually and empirically sophisticated analyses of learning outcomes across divisions of race, class, and place. The book brings together the wealth of decades of research output from top quality researchers to explore what has improved, what has not, and why." Prof Lant Pritchett, Harvard University "There is much wisdom in this collection from many of the best education analysts in South Africa. No surprise that they conclude that without a large and sustained expansion in well-trained teachers, early childhood education, and adequate school resources, South Africa will continue to sacrifice its people's future to maintaining the privileges of the few." Prof Martin Carnoy, Stanford University "Altogether, one can derive from this very valuable volume, if not an exact blueprint for the future, then certainly at least a crucial and evidence-based itinerary for the next few steps." Dr Luis Crouch, RTI

This book tells the story of white South African students--how they remember and enact an Apartheid past they were never part of. How is it that young Afrikaners, born at the time of Mandela's release from prison, hold firm views about a past they never lived, rigid ideas about black people, and fatalistic thoughts about the future? Jonathan Jansen, the first black dean of education at the historically white University of Pretoria, was dogged by this question during his tenure, and "Knowledge in the Blood" seeks to answer it.
Jansen offers an intimate look at the effects of social and political change after Apartheid as white students first experience learning and living alongside black students. He reveals the novel role pedagogical interventions played in confronting the past, as well as critical theory's limits in dealing with conflict in a world where formerly clear-cut notions of victims and perpetrators are blurred.
While Jansen originally set out simply to convey a story of how white students changed under the leadership of a diverse group of senior academics, "Knowledge in the Blood" ultimately became an unexpected account of how these students in turn changed him. The impact of this book's unique, wide-ranging insights in dealing with racial and ethnic divisions will be felt far beyond the borders of South Africa.

In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town used the slogan #RhodesMustFall to demand that a monument of Cecil John Rhodes, the empire builder of British South Africa, be removed from the university campus. Soon students at Oxford University called for the removal of a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College. The radical idea of decolonization at the forefront of these student protests continues to be a key element in South African educational institutions as well as those in Europe and North America. This book explores the uptake of decolonization in the institutional curriculum, given the political demands for decolonization on South African campuses, and the generally positive reception of the idea by university leaders. Based on interviews with more than two hundred academic teachers at ten universities, this is an innovative account of how institutions have engaged with, subverted, and transformed the decolonization movement since #RhodesMustFall.

In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town used the slogan #RhodesMustFall to demand that a monument of Cecil John Rhodes, the empire builder of British South Africa, be removed from the university campus. Soon students at Oxford University called for the removal of a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College. The radical idea of decolonization at the forefront of these student protests continues to be a key element in South African educational institutions as well as those in Europe and North America. This book explores the uptake of decolonization in the institutional curriculum, given the political demands for decolonization on South African campuses, and the generally positive reception of the idea by university leaders. Based on interviews with more than two hundred academic teachers at ten universities, this is an innovative account of how institutions have engaged with, subverted, and transformed the decolonization movement since #RhodesMustFall.

Do mergers, in fact, save money? Can mergers redress inequalities in the higher education system? How does a merger impact on the resultant curriculum of the combined institutions? Are certain kinds of mergers, such as voluntary mergers, more successful than others? Why do mergers so often fail to meet planning expectations? These are some of the intractable questions facing higher education restructuring that led a group of researchers at the University of Pretoria in South Africa to embark on broad, empirical studies on mergers in post-secondary education. The title demonstrates the primacy of politics in transitional contexts: indeed, each case study, in various ways, shows how government mandates are mediated within institutions and how institutional responses to these mandates together determine the merger outcomes.