The article concludes with the opportunities and challenges of moving towards decoloniality in the South African higher education system. This is followed by an outline of the analytical strategy that guides the analysis of the political, socio-cultural and historical contexts and discourse orders in the formulation of the HEQSF. The article concludes with possibilities for moving towards decoloniality in the South African HE system.
Transformation dominated attempts at change in HE in South Africa in the post-1997 period. In this article, transformation is considered as, 'the active removal of any institutional, social, material and intellectual barriers in the way of creating a more equal, inclusive and socially just higher education system' (USA 2015: 2). Odora Hoppers (2001) focuses on the incorporation of indigenous knowledge systems in the curriculum and argues that diverse cosmologies of knowledge should determine policy formulation.
As such, efforts to include indigenous knowledge in the curriculum remain on the fringes of mainstream curriculum development and pedagogy. Decoloniality and Africanization in the African context become the focus of the transformative process to fight against the structures of coloniality such as the university and its processes, traditions and organizational structures. Economic and social disadvantages as well as deficit perspectives that inform policies and curricula can disrupt rather than "do".
The analytical strategy that forms the basis of the analysis of the HEQSF is presented in the following section.
Analytic Strategy
Bacci (2009) formulated an analytical framework to analyze 'policy as discourse' with a focus on understanding a policy by connecting power relations with language where political and social struggles are shaped by the socio-historical context . WPR) framework (Bacci 2009) serves as an approach to analyze the discursive aspects of a policy with a focus on 'how problems are represented in the policy and how policy topics are constituted through problem representation'. The WPR serves as an analytical tool to guide the analysis process and is similar to the discourse analysis frameworks proposed by Fairclough and Parker (Goodwin 2011).
Epistemologically, this approach aims to produce representations of truth in order to disbelieve a policy (Goodwin 2011). The WPR framework proposes six questions with associated goals and strategies to analyze how problems are represented in the policy discourse (Bacci 2009). To emphasize the conditions that allow a particular problem representation to take shape and become dominant.
To raise for reflection and consideration issues and perspectives that are silent in the presentations of the identified problems. Techniques of discourse analysis including the identification of subject positions, practices of division where subjects are produced in opposition to one another, and the production of subjects that are considered as. How/where is this representation of the problem produced, disseminated and defended/ how can it be questioned, contested and disrupted.
A limitation of this approach, as with other discourse analysis techniques, concerns bias in the selection of the analyzed text (Goodwin 2011). The WPR is limited in that it focuses on text produced to provide guidelines to guide implementation (Bacci 2009). However, it is appropriate to analyze text in a document such as the HEQSF, which seeks to prescribe guidelines to achieve accreditation of qualifications and programs.
WPR forms the basis of an analytical strategy that draws on Foucauldian discourse analysis, archaeological analysis and genealogical analysis as well as interpretive analysis and critical policy analysis (Bacci 2009; Goodwin 2011). A further limitation of my analysis concerns a focus on the formulation and decision-making phase of the HEQSF rather than a comprehensive analysis or an implementation analysis, which would highlight implementation challenges. I now turn to the formulation of the HEQSF to analyze how the political, historical and socio-cultural contexts as well as the orders of discourse were formulated.
Design of the HEQSF
The language of academic transcripts and qualification certificates is regulated in the HOKR (DHEO 2013: 22) as well as in the language policy of the issuing institution. Accreditation of qualifications and recognition in an international context are goals for incorporating quality standards into the qualification using frameworks. Three progression routes, general, professional and vocational, are conceptualized in the HECR and this allows for articulation between HE, further education and training and work-based education and training.
Although articulation is important, articulation of the gap between higher education qualifications and those offered by technical and vocational education and training colleges was not sufficiently addressed in the design of the HEQSF (DHET 2013). This highlights the coloniality of power in the unequal power relations between academic qualifications and qualifications in trades and professions. Universities of Technology originate from the former Technikons, which were an invention of the apartheid government.
As higher education institutions, they were later renamed universities of technology and given a new mission in the period after 2005. Widening access was addressed in the HEQSF to '[f]acilitate the articulation of qualifications within the higher education system and help learners to identify potential pathways for progression, especially in the context of lifelong learning' (CHE 2013: 17). The HEQSF provides for alternative access routes such as lifelong learning, recognition of prior learning (RPL) and provision of credit accumulation and transfer (CAT).
Although widening access is central to achieving equity, RPL and CAT are not prominently represented in the HEQSF. Quality assurance of qualifications and programs is formulated in the HEQF in the form of benchmark standards which govern the development and accreditation of qualifications. The importance of learning outcomes is signaled in the wording and design of the HEQSF, and assessment is understood as an indication that learning outcomes have been achieved.
However, outcomes by qualification are not included in the qualification descriptors, they are only referenced. While assessment is an integral part of the curriculum development process, it is not addressed in the HEQSF. In light of the recent protests, the share of national funding allocated to higher education, as well as the amount allocated to qualifications, must be seen in the context of decoloniality.
Decoloniality within the Context of the HEQSF
In the search for a decolonized curriculum, the challenge is how the design of the HEQSF shifts from this hierarchy. The level descriptors 'provide generic standards for qualifications on the HEQSF in terms of predictable levels of knowledge and skill complexity at each NQF level' (DHET 2013: 15). While the HEQSF defines the different types of qualifications, a reform that supports the right curricula, including decolonizing curricula, requires innovative, creative and sustainable solutions.
A new funding model is needed to guide the system as the current funding framework is not suitable for and undermines HEQSF as it cannot support the proposed framework. The political, socio-cultural and historical context in which the HEQSF was designed is essential to understanding its potential to contribute to the decolonization of the curriculum. The HEQSF thus cannot allow movement from the Western milieu to other epistemic sites, as it was designed and serves a neoliberal worldview.
The socio-political and historical context within which the HEQSF was designed necessitated a sub-framework that would give South African qualifications national and international credibility. In addition, the top-down colonialist administrative control procedures advocated in the HEQSF deviate from more inclusive decolonial efforts. Concepts such as vocational and academic, but also knowledge and skills are contrasted in the HEQSF.
The binary nature of academic and vocational qualifications in the HEQSF, inspired by modernism, perpetuates the status quo in higher education institutions. The assumption is that the HEQSF will provide credibility, legitimacy and recognition, as well as quality assurance, both nationally and internationally. The HEQSF's inability to create parity and include the different qualification types above certain levels needs attention.
Doing away with HEQSF will create disarray in the HE sector with no alternatives to replace it. While the quality standards set out in the HEQSF are designed to inform the curriculum development process, they are diametrically opposed to decolonial theory. Curriculum development is seen as separate from the accreditation process, although in reality it draws on the standards set out in the HEQSF for a program or qualification to be accredited.
Concluding Remarks
Inequality and injustice in South Africa from the first attempt at decolonization after the Dutch and British eras and from the apartheid regime have continued into the period after 1994. Fanon (1963) therefore argued that the way colonialism persists in structures of injustice and oppression, must be questioned. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (2004) argues that the relevance of the curriculum to the African continent can serve as a starting point to guide efforts towards decoloniality.
A movement away from Western hegemony as the locus of curriculum and institutions is required for decolonization to take place (Leibowitz 2017; Helata 2016). Dispensing with what Macedo called the 'willful blindness that masks the struggles of marginalized students in South African tertiary institutions, and acknowledging and confronting the realities of most students, could be used to decolonize universities. Thus, changing institutional culture could foster a culture of decoloniality and kickstart the process of decolonizing the curriculum and ultimately lead to a decolonized university.
However, theories of decolonization must be taken a step further where they are able to influence change processes in a university and lead to appropriate implementation strategies. Changes to institutional culture and concrete implementation strategies that focus on change and the relevance of curricula are required. The design of curricula with a focus on skills and knowledge as well as prospective knowledge that will enable South Africa to be at the forefront of knowledge production and development must be prioritized.
Universities will also need to create structures that embrace change and diverse worldviews to meet the needs of a generation of students demanding the decoloniality of our institutions and curricula.
The origins of writing in the disciplines: traditions of seminar writing and the Humboldtian ideal of the research university. Why Africa's professors fear that colonial education is being dismantled. http://theconversation.com/why-africas-professors-are-afraid-of-.
