A safe space for ideas or a citadel of ethno-fascism? That’s the discussion raging at the University of Cape Town as it prepares to finalise the decolonisation of its curriculum.
Image: 123rf/Peter Titmuss
A new activist group, Progress SA, escalated the debate this week by posting a critique of UCT’s curriculum change framework.
The framework was developed by a working group set up in April 2016 by then vice-chancellor Max Price in the aftermath of #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall unrest.
Progress SA invited academics, students and alumni to attach their names to its open letter about the framework’s supposed shortcomings. Dozens have done so.
The letter is addressed to vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng, a member of the working group that finalised the framework at the end of 2017.
It calls on her to clarify the purpose of the framework and state “whether management intends to propose the document to senate to be adopted as university policy”.
It also wants an affirmation of UCT’s commitment to the principles of academic and intellectual freedom… “rather than as a space where management can impose a narrow ideological framework upon students and staff”.
And it wants an assurance that UCT will not introduce “a colour bar for lecturing in any discipline or at any level”.
When he released the framework document in June 2018, Price said he hoped it would “stimulate discussion”, and UCT has posted several critiques on its website.
UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola told TimesLIVE on Thursday the university’s teaching and learning committee was now evaluating comments on the framework “with a view of integrating different aspects of a curricular review”.
He added: “The aim is to have a document for senate in the second semester, having been presented in the faculties first.”
Progress SA’s letter, which UCT said would be considered alongside the other comments, says the framework is “fraught with linguistic indeterminacies and technical jargon that impair, rather than aid, comprehension. Many of its claims and arguments are so ambiguous or obscure that bona fide attempts at understanding, let alone critique and rebuttal, are near impossible.”
Then it asks: “Is it intended as a code of conduct for teaching, that will become university policy? Or is it merely a platform intended to raise points for discussion? The answers to these questions are of grave importance, and weigh greatly on whether UCT remains a free and open university.”
