Decolonising the Curriculum: What is a Decolonised Curriculum?

BU became a member of the Race Equality Charter in 2016.

It is an initiative managed by the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) and aims to improve the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education.

The Equality and Diversity Steering Group (EDSG) meets every term to discuss BU’s work and policies in these areas and to look for ways to continually improve, both as an employer and a higher education institution.

Employees from every professional service and every academic faculty are represented at these meetings, ensuring the group covers balanced and varied views. As part of our work, we create action plans and publish an annual report. 

Decolonising the Curriculum is an important agenda in current UK Higher Education

The term refers to activities which seek to redress biases in traditional course content which disproportionately focus on white, western authors and thinkers, or present an unfairly positive picture of their contributions.

Decolonising the Curriculum is about presenting a fair and balanced picture of Human thought and achievement  that represents knowledge and ideas from thinkers and authors of all nationalities, cultures and ethnicity. ​

Librarians are advocates of equality, diversity and inclusion.

By following the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Ethical Principles, library professionals are committed to upholding, promoting and defending:

• Human rights, equalities and diversity, and the equitable treatment of users and colleagues
• The public benefit and the advancement of the wider good of our profession to society
• Preservation and continuity of access to knowledge
• Intellectual freedom, including freedom from censorship
• Impartiality and the avoidance of inappropriate bias
• The confidentiality of information provided by clients or users and the right of all individuals to privacy
• The development of information skills and information literacy

The commitment of library professionals to diversity and equality can be highlighted by a recent speech given by Nick Poole, CILIP CEO. The work done in this area by BU library was referenced specfically. The following statement is from his speech:

"Putting equality, diversity and inclusion right at the heart of what we are and what we aspire to be as an organisation has felt like coming home – like finally stepping up to do the job which we were always there to do. It strengthens our advocacy, our focus and our resolve both to fight for diversity and representation in the sector and to do more to champion the role of our sector in creating a better world."

Lenrick Greaves (former SUBU VP Education) previously launched a campaign at Bournemouth University to raise awareness of the importance of having diverse curriculum content:

"‘Why is my Curriculum White?’ is a national campaign which aims to tackle a Eurocentric curriculum - challenging the lack of diversity found in our reading lists and course content.

After talking to many students about the lack of cultural representation on campus and in our various curriculums, I've decided to bring this campaign to Bournemouth University. The campaign’s overall goal is to not only lobby the university for a more diverse/representative curriculum for all courses, but to also ensure that we students are in the best position where we can challenge various thoughts and preconceptions in our various fields."