What does ‘decolonising education’ mean?
It interrogates how colonisation shaped our education system including the curriculum, and how this contributes to contemporary racialised inequalities.
Putting Empire back on the map THE NEU held a landmark conference on 14 December in London to initiate work on “decolonising” education. Decolonisation is a concept that is widely understood in universities, but organisers say it is time to “put it on the map” at primary and secondary schools. There are calls for events around the country after nearly 200 people from all regions attended the inaugural event. Here’s what some of them had to say. Denise Henry, NEU equalities officer, LGBT+ educators’ organising forum and Black educators’ network “I came to London from Jamaica in 2002 and have been very active in the union for about 15 years. I came today because as an educator there’s a need to look at the curriculum, which is not fit for our children, and ask what I can do with the
union to make it more inclusive in diversity and teaching about our history.” Maya Goodfellow, academic and author “I think it’s essential to understand the world around us in order to make sense of things like the immigration debate and how a lot of people who came to the UK didn’t actually come as migrants – they came from colonies and former colonies as citizens. That’s a history we don’t really learn. “One small part of decolonising is getting to grips with these histories and making sure they are properly understood, and also thinking about things like the race attainment gap, how our schools reproduce some of these racialised practices and how we unpick and challenge that.” Topé Allen, English teacher and assistant head of year “I attended the ‘Whose culture has capital?’ session, which was really interesting as the idea
of ‘cultural capital’ was completely new to me. Understanding that in itself can be quite problematic. “It’s our role, as educators, to critique that, and see how we can implement change in schools.” Lowkey, hip-hop artist “When Hong Kong was passed back to the Chinese in 1997, President Jiang Zemin told Tony Blair that it meant Britain and China could put the past behind them. Blair admits in his autobiography that: ‘I had only a fairly dim and sketchy understanding of what that past was.’ “If even a prime minister seems to have no idea that Britain enforced the use of opium on Chinese society in the 19th century opium wars, how do the rest of us stand a chance?”
Space for Empire on curriculum A GROUP of south London sixth form college students have carried out a stunt to highlight the lack of attention to British colonial history in the key stage 3 curriculum. On 9 January, they circulated 5,000 spoof editions of the Metro and Evening Standard – free newspapers distributed across London’s transport networks – headlined “Boris backs Empire education” and “Colonial past on future curriculum” (pictured). The group, Fill in the Blanks, say they learned almost nothing in the classroom about the violence and displacement of colonial rule. “By implementing this curriculum change, British society will have a chance to take accountability for the atrocities performed by, and in the name of, the Empire and ensure they can be avoided as Britain forms its postBrexit identity.” @fillinthblanks educate Your magazine from the National Education Union (NEU)
9
