It’s important that South African teachers, lecturers and professors develop curricula that build on the best knowledge skills, values, beliefs and habits from around the world.

As a young black undergraduate studying in the UK more than 15 years ago, I can remember the first time I came across a viewpoint from a black academic – because it was that unusual.

The recent 2016 meeting of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Convocation – the annual gathering of its alumni – has been described as having descended “into chaos”.

The idea of decolonisation frightens many South African academics. Since students launched the movement to decolonise higher education in early 2015, I’ve heard several of my peers ask, “What do ‘they’ mean by decolonisation? Going back to the Stone Age? Teaching only about South Africa and Africa? Isolation from the rest of the world?”

At a time when decolonisation, part of which involves changing the content of what’s taught, is dominating debate at many universities, the discipline of mathematics presents an interesting case.