REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
This article is part of the Research TopicTransforming Academia for EquityView all 19 articles
Deconstructing Inequalities in higher education institutions within the SADC Region
Provisionally accepted
- University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Educational inequality in the Sub-Saharan Africa has faced significant challenges since the colonial era. While many African countries have sought to increase access to quality education since independence around the early 1990s, the majority of these countries have very little to show when it comes to achieving epistemological access in education in which matters of quality, equality and justice are embedded notions. Of course, issues of inequalities in Africa just like in many developing countries worldwide are not new as they are foregrounded in the history of colonial exploitation, systemic marginalization, and imbalanced development priorities. More specifically so, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi have served as unique examples in illustrating how the proponents of colonialism and apartheid had used education to enforce racial and class dominance through manipulation of the curriculum, educators, and all policies that guided socio-economic life. There these very historical inequalities that continue to influence present day social, economic, educational and political conditions of many countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. This study therefore sought to explain and understand how colonial-era-like policies have continued to shape socioeconomic and educational conditions of modern African countries and how these policies and practices have recreated and sustained power-relations and inequalities among the peoples. Theoretically, the paper is guided by Epistemic Injustices as advanced by Mirander Fricker and Gaile Pohlhaus due to its ability to illuminate power-relations, domination and exploitation. Methodologically, the paper utilised qualitative research design especially document analysis since these events are naturally historical, and that over the years research scholars have done several studies leading education reforms, policy and curriculum reforms all of which are in the public domain.
Keywords: Inequalities,, Curriculum justice,, Epistemic Justice, Decolonization, Knowledge democracy
Received: 13 Nov 2025; Accepted: 16 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Chibambo, Divala and Fick. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dr. Mackenzie Ishmael Chibambo
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