Towards decolonising a module in the pre-service science teacher education curriculum: The role of indigenous knowledge systems in creating spaces for transforming the curriculum

Post-apartheid South Africa has witnessed many changes in its quest for social justice. However, these changes have not affected South African higher education institutions (HEIs) that continue to privilege epistemic traditions that are embedded in Western frameworks. The science curriculum has been instrumental in promoting Western worldviews as being universal. This has resulted in normalising the subordination of non-Western people and their knowledge systems. In seeking a change in the tenor of science education, I report on a qualitative study that explored the intersecting influence of the pre-service science teacher curriculum and indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). In my reconceptualising of a part of one science module, a departure from the revised curriculum and from the Western epistemic canon was effected by reframing who teaches, what is taught and how it is taught. A purposively selected sample of 224 pre-service teachers engaged in a field trip and a gardening project that was facilitated, in part, by an indigenous knowledge expert. Pre-service teachers planted a vegetable garden using indigenous methods and cultivated indigenous and non-indigenous plants. They captured the processes of planting and growing the plants in their portfolios and reflected on their learning by responding to questionnaires. I analysed the data drawn from the portfolios and replies to the questionnaires thematically. My findings revealed that consciousness-raising had occurred in these pre-service teachers about the value of indigenous knowledge (IK) and they endorsed the IK expert as a legitimate teacher in higher education. Insights into using IKS to transform and decolonise the curriculum by engaging an IK expert to teach brought previously marginalised IK to the centre. Teaching and learning in this context maximised interaction between the pre-service teachers and the materials being studied in their natural setting.