UNIVERSITIES ARE TOLD TO ‘DECOLONISE’ MATHS AND COMPUTING

And watchdog says teach about ‘white supremacy’

UNIVERSITIES are being told to ‘go woke’ and ‘decolonise’ courses – from computing to classics.

The Quality Assurance Agency, which monitors degree standards, has for the first time put critical race theory in its guidelines. The watchdog wants courses including sciences and maths to teach about colonialism, saying students of classics and ancient history should be taught about ‘white supremacy’.

Although compliance is voluntary, many lecturers are expected to take the advice on board. Bizarrely, the QAA says that computing courses should address how they ‘reinforce hierarchies

of colonial value’. And it thinks that geography should acknowledge ‘racism, classism, ableism, homophobia and patriarchy’. Critics of the move accused the agency of going ‘woke’ as well as being ‘anti-white and anti-Western’.

‘It’s alarming,’ said Chris McGovern of the Campaign for Real Education. ‘Campuses are being ordered to go woke. This QAA enforcement of anti-white and anti-Western racial hatred and division is iniquitous. It will undermine racial integration in our country and breed either resentment or self-loathing.

‘The QAA should be promoting enlightenment and knowledge, not prejudice and ignorance.’ Last month a Daily Mail investigation found that universities were already ‘decolonising’ science and vocational subjects following pressure from activists.

The latest advice from the QAA is incorporated into 25 ‘subject benchmarks’, which covers what students should study and the standards they should meet.

The benchmarks include instructions on equality, diversity and inclusion.

Biomedical students should ‘critically engage’ with how the subject has ‘contributed to and benefited from social injustice’ and how influential scientists might have ‘benefited from and perpetuated misogyny, racism, homophobia, ableism and other prejudices’. Economics undergraduates should be taught it is ‘still predominantly a white, male and Western field’.

Professor Dennis Hayes, of Academics for Academic Freedom, said the advice codified ‘the politicisation of university subjects’.

He added: ‘This allows activists to push their feel-good political ideas. Instead of teaching the best that is known and thought in each discipline they have been occupied by political activists always defending alleged victims. The loss to students is considerable. They are being denied proper access to the study of subjects and therefore legacy of human knowledge.’

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at Kent University, said: ‘The focus on colonialism, white supremacy, and decolonisation aims to encourage young people to feel ashamed about the nation’s past and to embrace the values promoted by advocates of identity politics.’

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: ‘It is deeply depressing that decolonising should have become official policy. All subjects should be judged in their own terms. The QAA should be ensuring the quality of what universities provide, not pushing current fads and fashions.’

The new maths benchmarks were revealed by a group of 12 professors who branded them ‘politicised’ in a letter published online.

The QAA describes itself as ‘ the independent body entrusted with monitoring and advising on standards and quality in UK higher educa

‘Pushing fads and fashions’

tion’. It is partially funded by membership fees paid by universities, who use it to provide monitoring and advice on course quality.

In 2018, the Office for Students recommended the QAA should be the ‘designated quality body for higher education in England’. The agency adopted the role, and since then has provided the OfS with advice about quality.

It has no powers of its own and regulatory decisions are made by the OfS.

However, universities still view it as the authority on quality.

A QAA spokesman said: ‘ Subject benchmark statements do not mandate set approaches to teaching, learning or assessment.

‘They are created by the subject communities for the subject communities, to be used as a tool for reflection when designing new courses or updating existing courses.

‘It’s up to the individual academics and their departments whether or how closely they follow this guidance.

‘The subject benchmark statement activity sits within QAA’s role as a membership organisation and is separate from our role as designated quality body.’ From March 2023, the QAA’s official role in England with the OfS is due to cease.

Susan Lapworth, chief executive of the OfS, said: ‘The OfS sets requirements for the quality of universities’ courses in England and

decides if those requirements are met. all decisions about the quality of higher education courses are made by the OFS and not the Qaa.

‘the OFS does not expect universities to follow the Qaa’s benchmark statements and we do not endorse or support the content of those documents. Should a university regulated by the OFS choose to use these documents it must ensure that it continues to meet the OFS’S requirements for course quality, freedom of speech and academic freedom.’

THERE was a time when universities prided themselves on being temples of intellectual freedom and original ideas.

Thinking the unthinkable, listening to dissident voices and bucking conventional wisdom were to be encouraged, not feared.

Today, our high seats of learning appear to have sacrificed that pluralism on the altar of a single Left-wing orthodoxy; one which brooks no opposition or alternative.

They have become factories of wokery, instilling in young minds the spurious notion that almost every advance in Western civilisation was achieved on the backs of oppressed people of colour.

The effects of slavery, colonialism and white privilege are so insidious they say, that they have permeated every corner of life – and every academic discipline.

Now the university standards watchdog, the Quality Assurance Agency, wants this ‘critical race theory’ embedded into the teaching of subjects from maths to classics.

Some of its guidance is beyond satire. For example, computing students should address how ‘hierarchies of colonial value’ are ‘reinforced’ in their field.

Biomedicine courses must teach how influential scientists ‘benefited from and perpetuated misogyny, racism, homophobia, ableism and other prejudices’.

On and on it goes, this vacuous credo, fuelling guilt and resentment in young people – many of whom will become the leaders of tomorrow – and distracting them from their studies.

Yes, slavery was abominable and terrible things were done in the name of empire. And yes, these wrongs and their consequences must be studied and learned from. But shouldn’t that be done in history, sociology or possibly geography classes?

‘Decolonising’ maths and science curricula, or seeing the study of languages through the prism of ‘injustice and equality related to imperialism’ is absurd and self-defeating.

It undermines academic integrity and will alienate students. They come to university to learn, not to be preached at and shamed over the sins of long-forgotten ancestors.

Sir Isaac Newton may have benefited from the profits of colonialism but does that mean physics students should ignore his seminal laws of motion?

The fact is that not every person of colour is a victim, just as not every white person is privileged. And not every problem in Africa or Asia is a legacy of colonialism. Yet in today’s universities, speaking these obvious truths could easily get you cancelled.

It’s a form of mind control more suited to an Orwell novel than the higher education system of a 21st century liberal democracy.