Indigenous knowledge systems and academic institutions in South Africa

Abstract

Tertiary institutions represent pinnacles of authority in knowledge production, accreditation, legitimation and dissemination. Every year, millions of young adults aspire to ascend to these pinnacles and acquire their necessary credentials. What these institutions choose to include, exclude, or denigrate can make all the difference as to the cognitive and operational capacities of the products of this industry in a post training period. From this perspective, the reconstruction of knowledge, the critical scrutiny of existing paradigms and the epistemological foundations of existing academic practice, and identification of the limitations that they impose on creativity must precede any specific work on curricula, research, or teaching methods because it is there, up-stream at the levels of epistemological foundations, that the orientations that feed the curriculum and details of teaching-learning practices emanate. Students must be taught about the deeper technologies of subjugation that have been applied to keep their societies down so effectively, for so long, if they are to find a sustainable, inclusive formula for a way forward.

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