Curriculum Change Working Group report

Dear colleagues and students

In August 2016 I informed the campus community of the Curriculum Change Working Group’s (CCWG) initiative to address transformation and decolonisation in the curriculum in response to the student protests. The role of the CCWG was to facilitate dialogue across the university over a period of 18 months (March 2016 to September 2017) in order to shape strategies for meaningful curriculum change. (Read the VC Desk.)

CCWG engagements included discussions and debates on decolonisation, the role of the public university, pedagogical and assessment practices that are experienced as exclusionary, flexible learning pathways to ensure student success and retention, understandings of the curriculum and its relationship to institutional culture, and the use of the wide range of linguistic, cultural and experiential resources that students and staff bring to the classroom.

The outcome of the process has led to a Curriculum Change Framework, developed by the CCWG, which highlights key pathways to meaningful curriculum change.

The framework has been developed largely from reading/study circles and from three key sites of engagement on campus: the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Fine Arts and Drama departments as well as the South African College of Music, where an extensive amount of time was spent by CCWG members during 2016 and 2017.

I hope this report will stimulate discussion within departments and among students, course convenors, those on education committees, and anyone interested in interrogating curriculum reform.

Although many people across the university participated in various CCWG engagements and have helped shape this document, I want to express my special thanks to the core team who are listed in the report.

Read the Curriculum Change Framework.

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements