**2. Literature review**

The conceptual knowledge of decolonisation and decolonised education in this study draws ideas from the premise of scholarship and research, which advocate discourse for the traditional philosophical foundation of education, and these ideas are pioneered in the works of many researchers [1, 2, 6, 7]. This study discovered that the discourse regarding the philosophical foundation of education contests the perennial view of knowledge and its disposition to enforce the reproduction of knowledge. Muller and Young [5] and Muller [6] argue that the reproduction of knowledge elevates a world outlook at the expense of other co-existing counterparts. Hence, knowledge for power and powerful knowledge overwhelm the pursuit of inclusive acknowledgment and the recognition of socio-cultural and historical perspectives in knowledge production. Furthermore, this chapter extends the view that philosophical ideas underpinning education and curricula in South Africa perpetuate conformity to the educational principles and the goals of the elitist supremacists and chauvinists who hold colonial and imperial world outlooks. Hence, the "Fees Must Fall campaign" instigators linked colonialism to educational principles and goals that dominate knowledge structures and knowledge production in South Africa. The realisation of the exclusion and the disregard of other

*Towards the Development of the Decolonized Pedagogy for Higher Education in South Africa... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101287*

world outlooks in the knowledge structures and in knowledge production was the core of the movement's contention during the campaign.

According to psychological studies, the issues of identity, equity, social justice, and respect are embedded in recognising people's cultures and their contributions to advancing society's socio-economic environment and political systems. The argument about fundamental principles is that decolonising education and curricula cannot become reality without a carefully researched and conceptualised paradigm to frame pedagogy. Semetsky [7] argues that educational research should first challenge the absolutist view embedded in the hegemonic view of pedagogy. The view of pedagogical content knowledge that promotes the authority of teachers over knowledge and learning strategies deprives learners of the freedom to engage critically with diverse realities and perspectives.

Furthermore, Semetsky ([7], p. 13) contends that the ideas of Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, which form part of content knowledge in educational studies, entrench traditional beliefs about teaching, learning, and content.

*"The history of philosophy has always been the agent of power in philosophy, and even in thought. It has played the repressor role. As a result, an image of thought called philosophy has been formed historically, and it effectively stops people from thinking."*

The first perspective of decolonisation regards a paradigm shift for promoting social justice, social and cultural identities, and a redress of Eurocentric supremacy and imperial attitudes. This perspective advances the ideas of many researchers [5, 8–12] about decolonising education. Convergent views of scholars challenge the promotion of a narrow view of the perspectives of knowledge and the philosophical foundations of pedagogy to encourage a one-dimensional approach to the interpretation of reality and the interrelationships of world systems. For example, Bignall [11] contends that colonialism; cultural supremacy, and imperialism are intertwined, colonialism being the political attitude to subdue indigenous people under the supreme political power through conquest and cultural supremacy being the mechanism to maintain the socio-economic structure. Imperialism is an economic tool to finance the system that has been established. According to Bignall [11], cultural supremacy and imperialism were about oppressive attitudes and practices towards the indigenous people. However, imperialism and colonial pedagogy create perceptions of inequality, competition in class divisions, and the stratification of people of the same cultural group through education. Similarly, Semetsky [7] and Popkewitz [13] construe colonialism and education when stating:

*"Formidable schools of intimidation which manufactures specialists in thought-but which also makes those who stay outside conform to all the more to specialism which they despise." ([1], p. 26).*

Muller [5] extends the narrative of conformity and the hegemony-oriented pedagogy when pointing out that knowledge production and knowledge structures promote the narrow world views of elite and supremacist groups in theory and practice. The narrow world view promoted by colonialist and imperialist pedagogy enforces exclusion and disregards indigenous peoples' cultural achievements and the experiences of subordinate cultures in what is considered knowledge for the powerful Muller [6]. Popkewitz [13] confirms that excluding indigenous cultures and their

socio-economic outlooks creates a perception of insignificance, subordination, and unworthiness in individuals identified with such communities. Psychosocial theories highlight that the social identities of the subordinate cultures are the sources of sociopolitical and economic instability in society [14, 15].

The second perspective of decolonisation promotes the reconstruction of pre-colonial traditional, indigenous lifestyles and acknowledges different world outlooks that co-exist with the Eurocentric worldview. These ideas drew from the studies and works of many researchers [16–19] who challenge the exclusion of Afro-centric perspectives in the study of the philosophy of education in universities. The above views include the recommendation of robust debates and discussions regarding the 'Africanisation' and 'decolonisation' of the content for the philosophical foundation of the pedagogy education to address the excluded perspectives of education in South Africa. The literature reveals that researchers consider decolonisation a pressing issue in the debates and discussions about curriculum development for higher education after the student uproar in 2015. The ideas and opinions elicited from notable publications [20–27] congruently point to the perpetuation of the bias and prejudice in the epistemological principles underlying the design and development of curricula in higher education and training. Kabela [20], Savo [26, 27] argue that decolonisation implies a change in the philosophical foundation of education and its curricula, and this change entails revisiting the epistemologies, theories, and principles that promote a Eurocentric world view. As perceived by other researchers, decolonisation is a challenge to the education and curriculum design and its development which intends to promote a Eurocentric world view and cultural chauvinism vour of cultural supremacists in South Africa [24, 25, 27–29].

The third perspective of decolonisation promotes modern cultures emerging from the co-existence of indigenous and Eurocentric cultures to construct a postmodern society. The culture of the colonised and colonisers exists in harmony. The advocates of this perspective advance the view that the colonised and colonisers' co-existence over centuries has resulted in the mangling of lifestyles and cultures [8–10]. The intercultural and cross-cultural viewpoints are undisputed realities; today, no pure cultural backgrounds could be maintained in colonial communities. As Bignall [11] contests, the conceptual understanding of decolonisation is that it is the rejection of aspects of knowledge that colonial societies have accumulated through their co-existence. According to the advocates of this perspective, the reviews of curricular and educational practices must be based on philosophical grounds that are free of bias, stereotypes, ethnocentric world views, and cultural chauvinism and supremacy. The social, political, and economic injustices justified by the philosophical views that underpinned the educational systems of the imperial and colonial powers should be carefully uprooted and replaced by the alternative paradigms agreeable and accepted by all sectors of the society.

In his work, Apple [1] supports a narrative that advocates for equity, social justice, and inclusion; "what knowledge and whose knowledge?" Similarly, Slattery [4] and Pinar et al. [2] envisage knowledge production mechanisms that address cultural chauvinism, cultural supremacy, and colonialism in curriculum development at all educational levels. The argument presented in this chapter extends a narrative that promotes the agenda of social reconstruction by including world outlooks and interpretations of human existence in teaching philosophical knowledge to university students.

The three perspectives of conceptualising decolonisation form the framework for analysing the ideas and views of the students who participated in the research discussions.

The narrative of colonial education pursued in the works of Bignall [11] and Patton [9] advance the view that academics and intellectuals that have been created or produced by the colonial education system are judged by their higher levels

#### *Towards the Development of the Decolonized Pedagogy for Higher Education in South Africa... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101287*

and standards of conformity to philosophical knowledge that do not recognise or acknowledge their socio-cultural contributions to the creation and setting of those intellectual standards. The perspective highlighted by Bignall [11] is considered in this work as significant for the following reasons. First, over centuries colonialism created new breeds of societies, which created economies, new settlements, and cultures through co-existence. Second, the reality of change and progress cannot be reversed back to a period of pre-colonialism and traditional lifestyle. In the same trend of thought, Patton ([9], p. 121) argues that colonisation is a philosophy invented by imperialists. This philosophy is inherent in the perceptions of the supreme culture, supreme value systems, and Eurocentric world outlooks.

Furthermore, Patton [9] states that colonialism produced attitudes of dependency, timidity, subordination, helplessness, emptiness and defeat, insignificance, and submissiveness in colonised communities. Semetsky [10], in the same vein, argues that research in the field of philosophy and education should focus on the creation of new concepts and further proposes the reconceptualisation of concepts invented during colonial and imperial dispensation in the context of socio-economic and political transformation. In agreeing to the pedagogy of freedom and liberation, Semetsky [8] also suggests that problem-based, inquiry-based, and experiment-based learning are the tools to use to transform the colonial philosophical foundation of education; where students should be apprentices in their field and should learn to identify particular problems and how to approach them in a way that leads to solutions. In the perspective of Deleuze, the rhizomatic theory explains how students can develop sprouts of new images of thought from what is readily available Bignall [11]. The shift from 'what is' to 'what can be' in learning is also significant in adult education [9, 30].
