Of false-starts, blind spots, cul-de-sacs and legitimacy struggles: the curriculum debate in South African higher education

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to attempt to bring into fuller perspective than has hitherto been done the issues of the affective in the curriculum debate in higher education in the post-apartheid period. The article poses the question of how the curriculum engages the domain of the affective or that which one might describe as the emotional states of mind that have been left behind since the 1994 settlement that was arrived at between the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party (NP). It uses the events surrounding the Rhodes Must Fall Movement (RMF) at the University of Cape Town, sparked by the continued presence on the university's campus of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes, and the emergence during the event of what protesting students referred to as 'black pain'. The article attempts to explain this pain, to critically review the relevance of existing curricula innovations in the country in relation to it, and to suggest possible ways in which the curriculum discussion with respect to it could be taken forward.