The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a new
report with original testimony and practical guidance for UK
universities on decolonising higher education. The report
establishes that the decolonisation of UK universities is vital
for the improvement of course curricula, pedagogical practice,
staff wellbeing and the student experience.
Miseducation: decolonising curricula, culture and pedagogy in
UK universities by Mia Liyanage is based on over 20 hours of
interviews with leading figures in academia, student activism and
higher education policy. The report’s recommendations include:
- Ensuring a better understanding of decolonisation and ending
its conflation with equality, diversity and inclusion
initiatives.
- Prioritising decolonisation in order to expand the curriculum
and improve both teaching and course content.
- Increasing Government and university funding for BAME
research and BAME-only scholarships.
- Tackling discrimination, hostility and unconscious bias
against those working on decolonisation.
- Creating departmental roles to work specifically on issues
relating to anti-racism and the decolonising of their department.
- Establishing channels for collaboration on these issues
between students and faculty.
Sixteen contributors were interviewed for the report. These
include: lecturers; a Vice Chancellor; officers at students’
unions, including the NUS; undergraduate activists; and policy
advisers to universities. The contributors are listed in full at
the start of the report.
Mia Liyanage, author of the report and Master’s student at the
University of Oxford, said:
‘This report is a vital resource for universities amid current
calls for anti-racist reform. Miseducationcontains
powerful testimony from experts, and from staff and students of
colour, who describe a silent crisis in our universities.
‘Anti-racism demands more from us than diversity –
decolonisation is the crucial next step for our institutions.
Meaningful change requires commitment, for which this report
provides a clear roadmap.’
In the Foreword to the report, Professor Iyiola Solanke,
Professor of EU Law and Social Justice at University of Leeds and
founder of the Black Female Professors Forum, said:
‘As set out in this important report, adoption
of the decolonisation agenda must embrace all aspects of
higher education – including pedagogy – so that key social and
political institutions, such as the police, can in all aspects be
reflective of the population that they serve.’
‘An outdated euro-centrism, that no longer reflects the
world in which graduates will live and work, must not be allowed
to dominate in our classrooms or in the country.’
