Miguel Taboada
Decolonising the curriculum means asking whose knowledge, history and voices a school or university teaches as “normal”, and then widening it so that the experiences of colonised peoples, Africa and its diaspora are taught accurately and in their own right. It is not about deleting European thinkers. It is about correcting a story that, for generations, began and ended with the coloniser.
The phrase is heard more and more in Britain, especially every October during Black History Month, but it is rarely explained in plain words. Here is what it means, where the idea comes from, what it looks like in practice, and why it sits at the heart of one of our own documentary series.
What does decolonising the curriculum mean?
A curriculum is more than a list of topics. It is a set of choices: which events count as history, which writers count as literature, which scientists and inventors are named, and which places appear only as somebody else’s colony. Decolonising the curriculum means examining those choices and the colonial assumptions behind them.
In practice, scholars usually describe three things:
- What is taught: widening reading lists and syllabuses so that they include a range of voices and perspectives from across the world, not only the Western canon.
- How it is framed: teaching empire, slavery and colonialism honestly, and presenting Africa and Asia as places with their own long histories, not as a backdrop to European exploration.
- Who decides: asking whose methods and ways of knowing are treated as authoritative, and looking for knowledge that was overlooked or dismissed because of colonialism.
The Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani has pointed out that many African universities began as colonial projects, teaching in English or French and recognising only one intellectual tradition: the Western one. Decolonising the curriculum asks what was lost when that happened, and how it can be recovered.
Where does the idea come from?
The thinking is older than the slogan. In 1986 the Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o published Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, a collection of essays arguing that language, culture and education were the deepest tools of colonial rule, and that real independence had to begin there. The book remains one of the most cited texts on the subject.
The modern campaign took off in 2015. On 9 March 2015 students at the University of Cape Town began the Rhodes Must Fall protests against a statue of Cecil Rhodes on their campus. The statue was removed on 9 April 2015, and the movement grew into a wider call to decolonise education across South Africa. It inspired allied student campaigns at universities elsewhere, including Oxford.
In Britain, students at University College London asked a question that became a campaign of its own: “Why is my curriculum white?” In 2015 the sociologist Gurminder K. Bhambra set up Global Social Theory, a website introducing theorists from around the world, in response to that campaign. Since then many British universities have reviewed their reading lists and courses.
What decolonising the curriculum is not
The debate is often reduced to headlines about “banning” famous writers. That is not what most advocates propose. Shakespeare, Newton and Plato stay on the syllabus; the change is that they no longer stand alone. A history lesson on the Industrial Revolution can also ask where the cotton came from. A science lesson can mention the mathematics of ancient Egypt. A literature course can set Chinua Achebe beside Joseph Conrad.
Nor is it only a matter for history or English. The same questions apply to medicine, geography, music and sport. When we wrote about sports invented in Africa, the starting point was exactly this: wrestling, stick fighting and ball games were played along the Nile thousands of years ago, yet most sports histories still begin in ancient Greece.
What does it look like in UK schools?
Most of the change so far has happened in universities, but schools are following. The clearest example is Wales. In March 2021 the Welsh education minister, Kirsty Williams, announced that Black, Asian and minority ethnic histories would be taught in schools under the new Curriculum for Wales from September 2022, making Wales the first UK nation to make them a mandatory part of the curriculum.
Elsewhere, much depends on individual schools and teachers. Black History Month, first celebrated in the UK on 1 October 1987 in London through the work of Akyaaba Addai-Sebo at the Greater London Council, is still the moment when many pupils first meet Black British history. The aim of decolonising the curriculum is that these stories are taught all year round, not only in October.
Some of those stories are very close to home. Our documentary Skin and Coal, now 40 years old, records the Caribbean miners who worked in Britain’s coal industry, a chapter of industrial history that most textbooks still leave out.
Why it matters
A curriculum tells young people who made the world they live in. When African and Caribbean history appears only as slavery and colonisation, children of African descent learn that their ancestors were acted upon, never actors. When it includes ancient kingdoms, scientists, composers such as those in our article on Black classical music, miners and athletes, every pupil gets a truer picture of the past.
This is the question behind Decolonising Education, a six-part documentary series in development by Claudine Boothe. The series asks how an untruthful colonial education system can be replaced by a decolonised and truthful one. It examines how Ethiopia, a country never colonised, nonetheless adopted a British colonial curriculum, how Nigeria’s pre-colonial history came to be left out of its classrooms, and how the curricula of Commonwealth countries still largely ignore indigenous pre-colonial histories.
Frequently asked questions
What does decolonising the curriculum mean?
Decolonising the curriculum means examining whose knowledge, history and voices are taught as the norm, and widening teaching so that the histories and ideas of colonised peoples, including Africa and its diaspora, are taught accurately and in their own right.
Does decolonising the curriculum mean removing white or European authors?
No. Most advocates propose adding missing perspectives and teaching empire honestly, not removing writers such as Shakespeare. The aim is a fuller, more accurate curriculum.
Where did the movement to decolonise the curriculum start?
The ideas go back to writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, whose Decolonising the Mind was published in 1986. The modern campaign grew from the Rhodes Must Fall protests at the University of Cape Town in 2015 and the “Why is my curriculum white?” student campaign at University College London.
Which UK nation made Black history mandatory in schools?
Wales. Under the Curriculum for Wales, Black, Asian and minority ethnic histories have been a mandatory part of teaching since September 2022, the first UK nation to make them compulsory.
What is Decolonising Education by Claudine Boothe?
Decolonising Education is a six-part documentary series in development by Claudine Boothe and Best UK Images Production. It looks at how colonial curricula shaped education in Africa and the Commonwealth, and how they can be replaced by a truthful one.
Bring these stories into the classroom
Best UK Images makes documentaries about Black history and culture for audiences, schools and universities. Find teaching resources on our Education page, and stream Skin and Coal and The African History of Sport from our Watch page. For screenings, educational licences, co-productions on Decolonising Education or press, write to projects@bukimage.com.