Professors say decolonisation agenda ‘politicising’ maths degrees

The authors are right to sound the alarm, no matte how goo the intentions this seems like a regressive and restictive step.It used to be the role of academics to shape the curriculum of their discilines , and external bodies to provide comments, not vice versa.

One way to cover these bases without screwing up a hard science course is to cover the relevant material as part of a separate unit that deals more broadly with how your subject interfaces with society, politics etc.... The material can then be presented by people with genuine expertise and in a manner that allows proper discussion and doesn't distract from day-to-day teaching of the core science. Many students may still not like it but at least they're getting something serious and (IMO) useful. This has worked well for us. More generally - guidance from QAA is fine - but it's not going to work out well if they start dictating course content.

It's somewhat similar in any STEM subject - if you are dealing with measurable truths, decolonisation or diversification can only be peripheral as the 'truth' doesn't change based on the colour of your skin or where in the world you live.

The letter misrepresents what the Subject Benchmark Statements do, and QAA's role. The SBSs are written by groups of subject experts (convened on behalf of the HE sector by QAA, and openly consulted on), and they don't mandate anything at all. They're guidance, intended to be helpful to academics and departments as they design their courses, but it's up to them how much they follow it.

As little I know about university mathematics courses, I have to say I’m really struggling to imagine how or why someone would mandate the “decolonisation” or similar of every module in a maths department. I’m sure there could be plenty to talk about with a history of mathematics module, etc., but stopping in the middle of a statistics class to inform everyone that the person who formulated X mathematical concept was a racist seems to trivialise the whole endeavour. It should stand to reason that some courses just aren’t going to require a substantive rethink of their relationship to colonialism or racism in the same way that others might. The history, sociology, politics, and ethics of science are all very important areas of inquiry and teaching, but trying to jam them into science courses in such a ham-fisted way seems to be the worst outcome for everyone except box-checkers on a committee.

University isn't school. PSHE ends with compulsory education. There is no need to push wokeism where there is no relevance.

As a professional mathematician, this issue seems rather artificial and quite ludicrous in essence. I recently included a section on this matter in an essay - happy to share.

Many of the comments here evidence a near-total lack of understanding of what decolonization/decolonisation is. Decolonization would look at mathematics and historically situation the development of it as a subject, its concepts, theories and so on. It would shed light on how and when concepts developed. It would historically situate the development of, for example, algebra in ancient Babylonia, Egypt and Athens. The development of calculus would not start with Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, but would be traced back to its ancient predecessors to demonstrate how it developed over time. Decolonizing mathematics or any subject/area is also about bringing to light knowledges that have been suppressed and/or erased. This includes ways of knowing and teaching the topic in question. Here are two recent items that delve further into what it means to decolonise mathematics (search for these online): Michelle Garcia-Olp, Chris Nelson & LeRoy Saiz (2022) Decolonizing Mathematics Curriculum and Pedagogy: Indigenous Knowledge Has Always Been Mathematics Education, Educational Studies, 58:1, 1-16, DOI: 10.1080/00131946.2021.2010079 Decolonising mathematics, a case for their aestheticising by Amy O’Brien at Kings College London with Dr Nathalie Sinclair on 26 April 2022 for its 2022 Keynote Lecture, which Dr Sinclair delivered on the theme of ‘Aestheticising Mathematics Education Research'.

Is the concept of decolonisation actually defined? Could we actually agree on z definition and what is the imperative to implement decolonosation. The drivers for this come from the adherents of critical theory. This not a science, not even a pseudo science. It is either an ideology or a religion.

It can be a different course, even an entire sub-field or a major, or a track in an existing major, such as history. The courses on mathematics per se must contain only mathematics as their mandatory content. This is hard enough. The subject is neither moral nor amoral: people who apply math make it moral or amoral. A historical and political interest , arts, links to other subjects are being added by individual professors at their own free will if they wish so, or by the students as a part of a class project. These additional aspects must not be mandated, such a mandate would backfire. One can easily envision both a very helpful implementation of such a mandate, and a very harmful implementation. Who will decide the content, another group of politicized bureaucracy with full salaries and benefits ?! There is a proverb that the road to hell is lined up with good intentions: the mandate to politicize mathematics is certainly a well-intantional idea ...

To make some component of the history and philosophy of a science compulsory within a degree course is to insist its having a humanities dimension. I would favour this in general, though absolutely recognise the difficulties some suggest above when students arrive without various basic skills, and much time has to be spent simply equipping them with these. But looking at a subject in a broader and more holistic manner is surely worthwhile for learning and knowledge in general. That said, the ways in which this history affects or should affect present-day application of maths or sciences is not a straightforward question. Some pioneers of statistics may have supported eugenics, yes, as did others with no involvement with the development of statistical methods. Does this mean those statistical methods are flawed? That is not impossible, but would need to be demonstrated properly. If the methods (not just particular application of them) involved some means of subverting proper scientific method in order to arrive at certain results which would bolster the case for eugenics, then the value of the methods would certainly be seriously questionable. But only if something of this nature can be shown is there really a case to be made.