Decolonising the Curriculum in South African Higher Education: A National Survey of Academic Perspectives,

This survey research investigates the perspectives of academics in South African higher education on the decolonisation of the curriculum between 2021 and 2022. It addresses the critical problem of understanding the practical challenges, conceptual interpretations, and institutional support mechanisms perceived by the staff implementing this agenda. Employing a quantitative, cross-sectional design, a structured online questionnaire was distributed to a stratified random sample of academics across all 26 public universities, yielding 1,243 analysable responses. Key findings reveal a strong, principled support for decolonisation, coupled with significant concerns regarding ambiguous institutional guidance, excessive workloads, and insufficient pedagogical training for curriculum redesign. The data indicate a notable post-2022 shift from theoretical debate towards a focus on practical implementation. The study concludes that, while the imperative is widely accepted, its translation into classroom practice remains uneven and often reliant on individual initiative. This research provides a comprehensive, national evidence base, underscoring the urgent need for structured institutional support, context-sensitive frameworks, and collaborative communities of practice to advance the decolonial project from rhetoric towards sustainable transformation rooted in African epistemologies.