Towards a Decolonised University in South Africa: Filling the Blanks

Abstract Research on the decolonisation of the higher education sector in South Africa continues to mount, though what remains underexplored is an evaluation of the efforts made towards establishing a decolonised university in its triple functions: teaching-learning, research and community engagement. Using literature from the public domain and document analysis, the qualitative study employs the South African context to analyse the efforts done so far to decolonise the three core functions of the university, so as to understand how the country has aligned to the decolonisation call. Deploying the decolonial lens, findings demonstrate that although universities in South Africa have remarkably engaged in the decolonisation of teaching, learning and research, they have overlooked the third core mandate—community engagement, which is still heavily girded by Western thinking and practice. Decolonising only the two core functions of the university, overlooking the third mission, makes the decolonisation agenda incomplete. The review underscores the need to seriously consider the decolonisation of community engagement whose mandate is to enhance social transformation and address societal problems. Beyond South Africa, the study provides valuable lessons to other countries in comparable contexts, given that very few universities in postcolonial contexts are immune to colonial legacies.