Decolonising the curriculum in our distance learning environment

Dates

Thursday, March 21, 2019 - 14:00 to 15:00

Thursday 21st March 2019, 2-3pm

Venue: Christodoulou Meeting Room 1, CMR01 or via Skype.

Organised by UCU in partnership with BME Staff Network and Race Equality Charter Team

Confirmed panel members:

• Dr Aravinda Guntupalli: HE Sector perspectives on “decolonising the curriculum”
• Dr Mustafa Ali on systemic and structural biases in contemporary computing
• Nita Sanghera, UCU National Vice President (Chair)

Come and join us to share your views on this subject. If you would like to join the event, contact: ucu@open.ac.uk.

How can we constructively challenge racism and colonialism within the curriculum and teaching methods to make our curriculum more inclusive?
Would decolonising our curriculum help narrow the gap in pass rates between black and white students?

Despite increasing recognition of the need to decolonise higher education in the UK, there is a lack of coherent action in development and delivery of teaching material and methods.

For online teaching these challenges can be greater. As online courses have a wider and more diverse reach, the discussion on decolonising the curriculum gains further relevance. Given this and the high impact of the OU’s work, the University has adapted its policies to be as inclusive as possible to meet its overall equality mission. However, the gaps in pass rates between black and white students continue to pose a significant challenge.

This is part of an ongoing UCU programme on 'Decolonising Education'. We welcome you to this first collaboration between UCU’s OU branch, the BME Staff Network and the OU’s Race Equality Charter project team.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/action-against-workplace-racism