What does decolonising the curriculum actually mean?

So pleased to have an acknowledgment that this debate is less relevant to technical subjects. Over the last few months, I have struggled to see how my lectures and material in engineering represent anything other than my take on a view laid out by our accrediting bodies on professional grounds. When I finally give a standard lecture again, it will be to a diverse group from around the world who are engaged and given the chance to contribute.

Decolonising the curriculum is about changing how we look and think about our disciplines in a more inclusive manner, not about a tick-list exercise in virtue signalling. Thus avoid having sections of reading lists highlighting the contributions of hitherto underrepresented groups, just include them in the reading list and (of course) in your teaching.

Revolutionizing the curriculum simply means acknowledging the tremendous contribution of non-profit white groups in litersture, history, sociology, politics, science, philosophy, development studies. For example the literature must no.longer give the impression that philosophy started with Socrates and Aristotle but it must be published that Socrates and Aristotle learnt philosophy in Africa; that many Africams, including slaves, invented a host of useful things, but their white slave masters took these inventions and patented them not in the Diana's names; that all ethnic groups experienced slavery. For example thousands of poor whites in England were banished to Australia which became a slave colony yet many of the history books and commentators even today associate slavery with African enslavement. More specifically, it must be taught across UK and European universities that all knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, science, transportation, construction, medicine started in Africa. This must be subject matter for a first course on Knowledge driven Development of Development Studies or Knowledge Economies. It must also be acknowledged that much of the artifacts on display in the British History Museum and some museums in France were taken from Africa and preserved. Why for example aren't t there replicas of pyramids in the British History Museum with comments that scientists and engineers today do not get understand how Africans centuries ago were able to build pyramids towering over the forests without any form of technology. How is Chinua Achebe novel Things Fall Apart of relevance to contemporary societies today? How does Paulo Friere's argument in his educational masterpiece Pedagogy of the Oppressed compare with the Frenchman Foucault' Power/ Knowledge Structures? How does Aime Cesaire compare with Shakespeare? What can we learn about the global capitalist system from Eric Williams' writings in his book Capitalism and Slavery? What can we today learn about the contemporary relationships between developed and developing countries from Walter Rodney's book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Put this side by side with van Sertima' s They Came Before Columbus. Did the work done in the University of Timbuktu exert a stronger influence on the direction of higher education than the oldest university in England?