Complicated conversations or convoluted archetypes? Higher education curriculum in South Africa

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-9868/i104a11%20

Keywords:

curriculum transformation, higher education, South Africa, decolonisation, posthumanism, neoliberalism, compliance

Abstract

Universities are identified as change agents, and curriculum as the instrument. Conflating the curriculum practice and graduate attributes or outcomes in South African higher education policy results in a simulacrum of education. Complicated conversations about curriculum are needed now: radically reimagining education's purpose and methods, holistically, relationally, and responsively.  The dominant assumptions about curricula are rarely interrogated, as universities and regulators fail to engage in complicated conversations about educational transformation across all the domains implicated in higher education, from student to state policymakers. This conceptual paper examines the formulation of 'curriculum' as blueprint for the transformation of education in South Africa. Policies governing curricula prioritise employability and skills over transformative learning, limiting student and academic agency alike. Drawing on research undertaken for the CHE and USAf on conceptions of curriculum transformation in South Africa, this reimagining of curriculum encourages the complex and subversive conversations currently marginalised by compliance-driven practice.

Author Biographies

Kirti Menon, University of Johannesburg

Associate Professor Kirti Menon is the Programme Director for the University of Johannesburg - Department of Higher Education Future Professors Programme Phase 2. She is the Project Lead for UJ on the EU funded project the Potential of Microcredentials in Southern Africa. Until 2024 she was the Senior Director of the Division for Teaching Excellence at the University of Johannesburg. She has served on several national task teams, and her research focus is higher education with a focus on access, exclusion and redress. She is a Research Associate affiliated to the SARCHI Chair in Teaching and Learning, Faculty of Education, UJ. She is widely published in the field of higher education, curriculum transformation, social exclusion and access. More recently, publications include a focus curriculum transformation commissioned by the CHE based on institutional audit reports.

Gloria Castrillon, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg

Dr Gloria Castrillón is the Senior Director of the Division for Teaching Excellence at the University of Johannesburg.  She has been actively engaged in higher education since 1994, and with accreditation and related areas since 2001. She has extensive experience in both private and public institutions in accreditation, national review, and audit. Gloria has served on the CHE’s Accreditation Committee, and has and continues to participate actively in different regulatory and compliance contexts. Her research focus is higher education regulation, policy and process broadly.  

 

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Published

2026-06-29

Issue

Vol. 104 (2026): Special Issue on Transforming Curriculum in a Rapidly Changing World

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Articles

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