Sindiwe Magona: An African Woman Teacher’s Agency for a Decolonised and Afrocentric Education

Simphiwe Sesanti

doi:10.25159/1947-9417/16340

Authors

Simphiwe Sesanti University of the Western Cape

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/16340

Keywords:

African culture, Afrocentricity, colonialism, decolonisation, education, Eurocentrism, patriarchy, racism, sexism

Abstract

In 2015, the University of Cape Town’s students who called themselves the Rhodes Must Fall movement, following their call for the removal of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes’s statue, also demanded a decolonised and Afrocentric education, against a colonial and Eurocentric education still prevalent in institutions of higher learning 21 years after South Africa became a democracy. Cognisant that colonial and Eurocentric education in South Africa affected Africans both in racist and sexist ways, this article examines how Sindiwe Magona’s writings, published since 1990, have practically contributed to realising the yet-elusive decolonised and Afrocentric education. The focus is on Magona as an African woman teacher and writer because she resisted and confronted colonial and Eurocentric education’s racist and sexist manifestations, and advanced decolonised and Afrocentric education in those capacities.

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