Decolonizing the University through Community Partnerships

The race for ranking of universities is intensifying every year around the world; as institutions of higher education, universities are chasing a monolithic model of ‘excellenceâ based on the Oxford/Harvard paradigm. As worldâs most elitist institutions, Oxford/Harvard model of universities is premised on ensuring intellectual superiority under the guise of research excellence, and restricted entry of students on the twin basis of ‘meritâ and money.

This is the colonial model of higher education that was effectively used to colonise the minds of a comprador class to serve colonial masters of Europe and America. In the newly developing societies of Asia, Africa, Arab and Latin America, the mass demand for good quality post-secondary education is growing rapidly. The response from the policy-makers and administrators has been to segregate the system by creating a small number of ‘world classâ universities which try to ape the Oxford/Harvard model and then to allow others to languish in poor quality and weak accountability. This neo-colonial trend in higher education is affecting the quality of learning amongst first generation learners in such universities.

It is this trend that requires ‘decolonisationâ; a symposium held at University of Victoria in Canada last week focused on strengthening community partnerships as an approach to decolonising universities. Nearly one  hundred activists, scholars, students and indigenous leaders deliberated together on ways to strengthen community-university partnerships with a view to decolonise research and teaching in post-secondary educational institutions.

The elders from First Nations of the region exhorted the participants to look at the  indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing as a basis for building such partnerships. In this approach, partnerships are built on mutuality of interests and respect for each other. The central element of such mutuality is respect for indigenous ways of knowing. This requires universities to have the courage to change the way they pursue engagement with communities. Partnerships have to be built across all the core functions of a university—teaching, research and service; partnerships with communities should be integral to everything that a university does.

While universities have to change in this direction, community leaders and civil society activists also need to have the courage to change. They have been apathetic to higher education institutions so far; many civil society activists are cynical about the role of such institutions in societal transformations. They have to have the courage, and capacity, to engage as well; they have to demand accountability from institutions of higher education to become socially relevant and make partnerships with communities a central focus of their own transformations.

It is such a dynamic of mutual change that will make partnerships between communities and universities stepping stone towards ‘decolonisingâ the universities in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and co-construction of knowledge.

Rajesh Tandon
March 11, 2013