Exposure to the formal colonial education system has led children in a rural indigenous community in the Eastern Cape to be socialised in a manner that alienates them from their indigenous and cultural ways of being, living and doing, a doctoral study by an early-career researcher in the Department of Global Health has found. 

According to Lieketseng Ned's findings, the conventional education system has brought ill-health and has generally undermined ways of living in the Xhora (also known as Elliotdale) community, close to Umtata in the Eastern Cape. 

Ned's doctorate, entitled 'Reconnecting with indigenous knowledge in education: exploring possibilities for health and well-being in Xhora, South Africa', suggests an inextricable link between education and health and well-being and argues for a centring of health and well-being as a core learning area in education system's curriculum for better health and well-being outcomes. 

Ned, as part of her research, facilitated a case of narratives with AmaBomvane in rural Xhora, during which she asked community members to describe their experiences of the influence of the education system on their indigenous traditions and knowledges, and their links to health and well-being. She also explored what the stakeholders in the community identify as indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning and how these can inform curriculum development and implementation in the formal schooling system. 

“For this community, health is inextricably related to having strong relationships within their culture and traditions as well as being able to produce food in their community.

“In this community, most of the people identify themselves as AmaBomvane and many of them are true to the indigenous ways of doing and living," Ned said. “However, owing to coloniality and apartheid, identity clashes have negatively influenced how people live and sustain themselves. 

The education system has exacerbated this by socializing children to negate their ways and willingly become accomplices of cultural imperialism through imitation and appropriation. 

“What they are saying is that with cultural and psychological dislocation, ill-health is a consequence. These are seen in broken relationships, disintegrated families, increased alcoholism and violence, neglect of key community roles, poor lifestyle patterns and inability to produce food and sustain household, all of which contribute to the burden of disease. 

Ned, 29, grew up in Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape, completed a BSc in Occupational Therapy at UWC in 2009 and worked as an Occupational Therapist in Mount Frere and later in East London. She then completed an MPhil in disability studies at UCT in 2013 before moving to Stellenbosch University in Oct 2014.  

Ned is an Early Career Researcher in the Faculty (under the mentorship of Prof Leslie Swartz) and the youngest lecturer at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies. She convenes the postgraduate diploma in Disability and Rehabilitation Studies. 

She started her PhD in 2016 and submitted it in October last year. In a nutshell, her PhD focus suggests an inextricable link between education and health and well-being, thus arguing for health and well-being to be considered a core learning area in the education system's curriculum. She is also arguing for recognition of coloniality and colonial education as broad social determinants of ill-health. 

“This means realising that poor health and well-being reproduces poor educational outcomes and inequities, while poor education feeds inequities which influence risky health behaviours," Ned said in her thesis. 

“When learners are not healthy, they cannot learn and if they cannot learn, they are less likely to do well in life, which later translates into poor health. Enhancing people's lives is an important part of what education should be about because positive health and well-being is a key enabler of learning; thus as important as other key learning areas in education curricula." 

Ned plans to use her findings to engage with the educational sector and influence public health. 

“I am interested in engagement that bring in conversation education and health as interlinked. My interest is in facilitating an Indigenous-decolonial framework for reconstructing curriculum for health and well-being." 

Ned is now preparing for her postdoctoral activities which include an international collaboration with Prof Hisayo Katsui, Associate Professor in disability studies at the University of Helsinki as part of a staff exchange programme.