DECOLONISATION OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION CURRICULUM FOR EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

their prevalence. The persistent inequalities that have persisted despite post-apartheid policy attempts to address the legacy of apartheid are evidence that higher education in South Africa has made little progress (Bozalek & Zembylas, 2017; . The #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall movements brought to light the social, economic, and political inequalities that are pervasive in higher education and society at large . According to Clowes, Shefer, and Ngabaza's (2017) analysis, various policies and legislative measures, such as The Department of Education's White Paper of 1997, The Soudien Report, The Department of Higher Education and Training's paper of 2010, and suggestions from scholars and advocates, were ineffective in promoting greater societal equality. This argues why institutions of higher education incorporate historical inequalities into their ethical course content design. The presence of historical inequality is a contributing factor to the current state of institutions that are not equally resourced. According to Jansen and Walters (2022), pedagogies that promote social justice are a means of developing agency in individuals towards achieving social justice.
Given the gradual pace of change in higher education institutions and the constraints of conventional pedagogical approaches employed in universities and colleges, social justice prioritises the equitable involvement of students and non-human elements, such as the physical classroom environment, alongside instructors, to facilitate effective knowledge generation and promote a more sustainable and just society (Rawls, 1971). According to Rawls (1971), the concept of social justice is a subject of debate and has been approached from diverse perspectives. The present discourse aims to explicate the concept of decolonising pre-service teacher education using social justice, through the lens of Rawls (1971), whose endeavour is widely acknowledged as the initial all-encompassing framework of social justice theory. In contemporary discourse, Rawls' theory of social justice has been subject to numerous insightful criticisms. One such critique, put forth by Martha Nussbaum in 2002, attempts to establish a connection between social justice and the capacity for action among individuals situated at the fringes of society. This study explores a critical reflection on social justice for normative pedagogies and promotes social justice in higher education. Furthermore, the constructive part of this study highlights key indicators for teaching ethics in higher education institutions to foster social justice.
Various calls to decolonise higher education in South Africa became significant after several student protest movements that plagued some South African universities between 2015 and 2016 (Ajani, 2022). One of the students' demands was the decolonisation of higher education. According to Mabasa and Singh (2020:146), to decolonise higher education is 'to transform and democratise the higher education landscape'. Several policies like the National Commission on Higher Education, the White Paper 3 1997, and the Higher Education Act of 1997, which were in place before 2015, failed to democratise higher education in South Africa (Fataar, 2018). These policies aimed to address salient inclusivity, access, equity, social justice, and equality issues that continue to thrive in higher education institutions. However, several decades after the post-apartheid era in South Africa, the transformation of higher education has not reflected a substantial increase in democratic access to inclusivity and equality in the higher education space. This explains some justification why student protests for the decolonisation of higher education curricula, pedagogical changes, and epistemic practices linger on. Their demands resonate with several discourses on the decolonisation of higher education by academics in South Africa. Ajani and Simmonds (2022) assert that the curriculum is seen as largely Eurocentric. Thus, the failure of higher education spaces in South Africa to promote minority groups is a severe academic disadvantage to diverse social groups. Social justice advocates for the accommodation of social diversities that exist in South African communities, in higher education. The accommodation of these social groups enables their human rights, as well as equity of universities from an apartheid syndrome for a democratic learning environment (Le Grange, 2014). Fataar (2018) also argues for the need to introduce policies that deal with the abuse of power against the disadvantaged, while Waghid (2014), on the other hand, urges the need to design a curriculum that addresses injustices and social inequalities that pervade higher education spaces in South Africa. Sayed, Motala, and Hoffman (2017) argue that the transformation of higher education should focus on democratic education that prepares students for a democratic society, driven by equity and justice for inclusion in diversity. Therefore, Lumadi (2021) argues for the curriculum to be decolonized to embed liberation and equality in all aspects of higher education. Decolonising the pre-service teacher education curriculum is thus seen as a way of advancing equity and inclusivity, which can aid a transformative curriculum for pre-service teachers. This is possible despite the complicatedness of curriculum decolonisation (Le Grange, 2020; 2021). In this article, I explore the possibilities of using social justice as a critical avenue to decolonise the pre-service teacher education curriculum. Hence, social justice is employed as a theoretical framework that underpins the decolonisation of the pre-service teacher education curriculum for equity and inclusivity.

Social justice as a theoretical framework.
The present study is underpinned by Rawls' (1971) theory of justice, which posits that a fair distribution of resources within a society is a fundamental aspect of social justice. Rawls (1971) posits that the theory is grounded on two fundamental principles, namely the principle of equal rights for all individuals and the principle of reorganising social and economic disparities to benefit everyone. The study finds relevance in the two principles as they pertain to racial groups that have historically experienced disadvantages as a result of colonialism and apartheid. The theory of justice posits that it is imperative to incorporate the rights, norms, and values of historically marginalised groups into the educational curriculum. Thus, advancing decolonisation of the pre-service teacher education curriculum is motivated by social justice theory.
In his work published in 1964, Fanon presents a call to action for scholars to strive towards establishing a society that is characterised by fairness and impartiality. This entails creating an enabling environment where individuals are not limited to adopting Western ideologies and can freely express their thoughts. The integration of indigenous African knowledge systems into the curriculum is imperative in decolonising teacher education curriculum, to sever the strong dominating ties of Western thinking. This will enable students to critically appreciate and cherish their unique ways of knowing and thinking, as suggested by Mawere (2015). According to Mbembe (2016), it is imperative to reconsider the decolonization process in South Africa through the lens of social justice theory. This is due to the prevalent issue of under-representation and marginalisation of indigenous knowledge within the current academic curriculum that students are exposed to, in various learning institutions. The aforementioned elucidate the reasons behind the widespread demonstrations by students in South African institutions of higher learning, who demanded the redress of educational disparities through the process of decolonization.

Decolonisation of teacher education curriculum in South Africa.
Decolonising Pre-service Teacher Education Decolonisation of higher education gained prominence in South Africa after a series of student movement protests that rocked South Africa's universities. According to Le Grange (2018:5), 'decolonisation is the undoing of colonisation'. While Lumadi (2021) describes decolonising the curriculum as an attempt to liberate all aspects of higher education for equality and justice, with critical thinking on/ from different perspectives of topics. Thus, decolonisation enhances participation and recognition of marginalised groups in the production of knowledge. Mbembe (2016) agrees that the decolonisation of content, language, and other structures of the education system is critical to colonised minds. Various African countries that gained independence from their colonial masters have been making efforts to decolonise different structures (Mbembe 2001 Mbembe (2015), and Ajani (2022) assert that this curriculum is oppressive, suppressive, and hegemonic deterring students from thinking outside the knowledge frame. Similarly, Jansen (2019), Bertram (2022), and Le Grange (2023) call for radical decolonisation of the higher education curricula to decolonise knowledge, so that different kinds of knowledge space can be created to eradicate inequalities. Heleta (2016) argues that transforming the production of knowledge in higher education should not only mean introducing indigenous ideas, customs, and knowledge, but also denouncing colonised epistemologies and worldviews. McKaiser (2016), and Ajani (2019) however, caution that decolonisation does not mean the total condemnation of Eurocentric worldviews. Nevertheless, it does involve positioning Africa as the core of learning within the curriculum space (Mbembe, 2015;. Thus, decolonising the pre-service teacher education curriculum involves restructuring learning experiences, pedagogies, and 'epistemes' for pre-service teachers, appropriate for their ever-changing socio-economic, political dilemmas as well as contradictions to develop and enhance their critical engagements (Ramrathan, 2016;Mahabeer, 2017; Le Grange, 2019). The decolonising curriculum will inevitably lead to many changes in curriculum to ensure that higher education plays its role in preparing students appropriately (Ramrathan, 2016;Ajani & Simmonds, 2022b). Mbembe (2015) posits that for meaningful decolonisation to be attained in teacher education, there must be a shift to the intellectualism of the curriculum. This implies that the purpose of decolonising the curriculum is to drive necessary changes that enable pre-service teachers to connect to their diverse contexts and understand others from their own contexts (Wa Thiong'o, 1981; Mbembe, 2015; Ramrathan, 2016; Le Grange, 2023). Decolonisation is a complicated and complex process that seeks to interrogate colonial heritage and traditions within different public spheres which include education (Appadurai, 2015;Mawere, 2015). Transforming curriculum through the decolonising lens is a difficult and complex task, which requires that all students experience inclusivity and equity through 'emancipatory actions' (Le Grange 2016). Ramrathan (2016) describes the decolonising of teacher education curriculum as a slow, ongoing process. At present teacher education is a mere clone in various higher education spaces . This is why essential curriculum transformation is called for in pre-service teachers' curriculum.
This study acknowledges that despite changes in higher education in South Africa (Le Grange, 2018), there is a need for teacher education curriculum to embody new approaches to equity, social justice, and equality and invigorate curriculum intellectualism in pre-service teachers.

Fostering Equity and Inclusivity through Social Justice.
The renewal of intellectualism in teacher education is a critical factor in the decolonisation of the teacher education curriculum for equity and inclusivity in higher education. Mbembe (2015) sees decolonisation as capable of attaining transformation where necessary policies are introduced and actions are taken to restructure the Western model of higher education, the curriculum as well as the existing knowledge systems. This restructuring is a process to decolonise or break the dominance of Eurocentric knowledge production in South African education spaces. However, Mbembe (2016) cautions that innovative and critical actions are necessary to ensure that the dominant knowledge is situated in African realities. This transformative process of the decolonising curriculum emphasises the role of curriculum intellectualism, where every student is involved in the change process (Mbembe, 2015). As part of this process, social justice can be used to promote a desired teacher education that provides equal learning opportunities for preservice teachers in all-inclusive learning spaces. Heleta (2016) asserts that the apartheid curriculum continues to dominate teacher education as part of Eurocentric supremacy in higher education. Mamdani (2016) highlights that a curriculum of equity and inclusivity of curriculum has to speak to diverse social and historical realities that exist in South Africa. Smith (1999) as well as Mede (2017), argues that despite the Western philosophy being appropriated by African experiences and traditions, the whole Western education has to be redefined and interrogated. Nakata, Nakata, Keech, and Bolt (2012), Le Grange (2019), and Bertram (2022) point to the need to address the fact that appropriated knowledge production in Western philosophy misrepresents IKS and neglects other forms of knowledge from indigenous realities. Paraskeva (2011) and Jansen (2019) admit that Eurocentric knowledge has succeeded in entrenching Western epistemologies at the core knowledge of the curriculum. Decolonising the curriculum for preservice teachers is expected to provide opportunities for the students to engage in critical thinking, empirical probing, and open and creative thinking that counters the narrowness of Eurocentric knowledge (Ramrathan, 2016).
Meanwhile, the curriculum can be transformatively decolonised to deliberately focus on curriculum intellectualism that makes pre-service teachers critically think and act as social change agents to the realities that surround them (Mbembe, 2015;Ajani, 2022). This makes Social justice to be crucial (Rawls, 1971). According to Freire (2005); Mahabeer (2017); Gabriel (2020), education is a critical pedagogy aimed at the emancipation of citizens. Social justice engages liberal, emancipatory, and border pedagogies to advance critical thinking that can enable the critical agency to be attained. The theory challenges pedagogical approaches that narrow curriculum to a Eurocentric image, deeply entrenched in teacher education, and calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum (DaCunha, 2016; Le Grange, 2023). For Lumadi (2021), Ajani (2022), Jansen and Walters (2022), decolonising the curriculum encourages critical thinking and initiating the debate on issues that are important to marginalised groups in our community, which are never addressed in the education systems.
Decolonising the pre-service teacher education curriculum can be messy and dynamic to accommodate or integrate students' diverse local contexts (Sium, Desai & Ritskes, 2012;Mahabeer, 2017). Lumadi (2021) posits that students in higher institutions should express their views through critical thinking or engagements with acquired knowledge from higher education and their own thinking. For Osman and Hornsby (2017) and Darling-Hammond, Flook, Cook-Harvey, Barron, and Osher (2020), students need to be able to contribute to knowledge construction by expressing their personal dimensions of pedagogy. Their diverse opinions or views indicate how and why politics of difference are essential in building relationships between pedagogy and agency in learning spaces (Osman & Hornsby 2017). Ryan and Tilbury (2013); Le Grange (2019), and Jansen (2019) appear to believe that decolonising will deconstruct those dominant strategies, pedagogies, and structures that drive Western Eurocentric education. Thus, social justice provided students with diverse opportunities to challenge learning experiences while exploring their personal dimensions of pedagogy.
Pre-service teachers can engage in the politics of difference to construct knowledge based on the relationship between pedagogy and agency for teacher education. Hence, students are transformed into social change agents who impact or influence their society, using experiences from dialogical spaces within teacher education (Maringe, 2017;Mahabeer, 2017). In addition, social justice as a theory enables pre-service teachers to reflect on their generated diverse views as a means of contextualising learning that addresses their societal needs. Wals (2010) and Ajani (2022) contend that the challenges of the present century are multifaceted and require teacher education that is not one perspective based or traditionally dominant. As such, social justice invigorates how colonial education in post-apartheid South Africa's pre-service teacher education has been used as a powerful tool of social injustice against the indigenous people (Rawls, 1971; Nwanosike & Onyije, 2011). The theory calls for leverage for all students in the higher education landscape, enhancing the possibility of redistributing resources to address previous social injustices. Maringe (2017) argues that social justice aims at the equalisation of opportunities for all to access knowledge, succeed, and progress beyond demarcated educational cycles. Social pedagogies at all phases of higher education can integrate academic and practical education in a transformative curriculum aimed at enhancing contextualised human capacities (Maringe, 2017). The capacitated preservice teachers can thus meaningfully contribute to their localities. At present, South Africa's higher education curriculum is plagued by being set in a socially unjust context that separates different groups and perpetuates inequalities. Hence, one dimension of social justice is its focus on dismantling social inequalities (Burton et al., 2009;Osman & Hornsby, 2018). Before using Social justice should thus be grounded in moral beliefs which honour differences in genders, and races, and support equal social opportunities, rather than clinging to colonial and apartheid beliefs. Burton et al. (2009) and Le Grange (2021) argue that a good curriculum should provide ethical and moral learning experiences.
Maringe (2017), Ajani (2019), and Bertram (2022) point out that social justice creates spaces for indigenous people's culture in learning experiences. This is because learning situations in pre-service teacher education need to be situated in diverse IKS. It is also important to engage and even interrogate or engage indigenous cultures in teaching and learning. The authentic spaces for the inclusion of local cultures with foreign-dominated values in teacher education are embedded in social justice. This, Freire (1970) asserts can promote critical engagement of students with their learning content. Similarly, Lumadi (2021) asserts that the critical engagement of students is important in higher education. Freire's (1970) and Klaasen's (2020) idea of critical engagement is further advanced through social justice in learning, which are designed to be dialogical engagements rather than monological, teacher-centred, Eurocentric content/ assessment-driven pedagogy (Maringe, 2017).
Hence, transforming pre-service teacher education through social justice demands teaching and learning be anchored on two-way-dialogic approaches to understanding knowledge. The two-way approaches explore the relationship between pedagogy and agency to construct knowledge. Social justice can then explore pre-service teachers' previous knowledge to diversely capacitate students, reconstructing learning in socially constructed learning spaces (Bandura, 1971;Maistry, 2011). For Sathorar and Geduld (2018), students' abilities to reconstruct learning are exhibited in three spaces: personal, disciplinary, and social. The personal space is where pre-service teachers reconstruct learning in their local contexts, while the disciplinary space enables students to engage in learning rather than regurgitating knowledge in various disciplines. The social space drives students through cultural learning, for indigenous people's relevance in teaching and learning.
Personal, disciplinary, and social learning spaces (Sathorar & Geduld, 2018) are critically important to attain personal dimensions of pedagogy, politics of difference, and the relationship between pedagogy and agency in South Africa's higher education. Moje (2007) admits that teaching and learning through social justice significantly place students at the centre of their learning spaces, where glocalisation is critical to their learning process, using their own understanding of local contexts to understand new learning in a global contextual space, and thus create new knowledge or recreate learning. Furthermore, Patel and Lynch (2013) argue that new knowledge is generated and regenerated to reflect consideration and reflection within learning spaces. Conversely, students are placed at the centre of learning where they are responsible for their learning experiences in contextualised experiences. Transforming curriculum through social justice involves reimagining and rediscovering present Western epistemologies to accommodate appropriate indigenous epistemes for African scholarship.
Engagements with Eurocentric knowledge are, therefore, not to condemn Western-dominated epistemes but to allow African scholarship into teaching and learning (Biko, 1987;Maringe, 2017;Lumadi, 2021). Through social justice, alternative pathways for (re)imagining the transformation of postcolonial pre-service teachers is critical to higher education (Mahabeer, 2017). Pre-service teachers from diverse backgrounds need to be able to operate in diverse classroom contexts. Thus, with social justice, students are engaged in liberal, emancipatory, and border pedagogies to advance their critical thinking, which enables the critical agency to attain transformation. Social justice shifts colonialdominated knowledge to postcolonial knowledge in the interest of social justice. Klaasen (2020) suggests personal dimensions of diverse students are recognised in knowledge, and this varied and complicated issue can influence how individuals learn or construct knowledge in learning spaces when social justice is employed.
Social justice can transform teaching and learning in teacher education, advancing pedagogical practices that recognise and allow varying and complex diversities in students' voices. The students' voices need to be heard through pedagogical practices to exhibit personal dimensions of pedagogy. The politics of difference, which is pedagogically and philosophically acknowledged, promote interactions between pedagogy and agency as students display personal dimensions of pedagogy. The relationship between the two influences social change in society, as pre-service teachers are made to recognise individual powers in constructing knowledge. Pedagogical actions enhance the ability to use various approaches to accommodate individual and collective agencies. Opportunities are created for students to challenge issues that can enhance agency (Maringe, 2017). The pedagogies build confidence in preservice teachers for societal transformation. Osman and Hornsby (2017) opine that in transformative pedagogies, social change and human agency are central to building the capacity of students to challenge hegemonic discourses in teacher education.

Methodology.
This study employed a systematic review of various literature sources on decolonisation of higher education. A decolonising teacher education curriculum is framed in complications and complexities (Smith, 1999;Mahabeer, 2017). Chilisa (2012) argues that drawing on indigenous research to design a curriculum creates opportunities for indigenous voices to share their worldviews when developing a global understanding of their thoughts, actions, and experiences. The present study conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal manuscripts and conference papers on the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa. The search was conducted on two databases, namely Google Scholar and Scopus®, and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines as outlined by Page et al. (2021). The search process involved the utilisation of specific keywords, namely decolonisation, teacher education, pre-service teacher, higher education, South Africa, inclusivity, social justice, and equity. The papers that were obtained were evaluated for inclusion based on the following set of criteria: 1) Research articles published within the timeframe of January 2000 to 2023. 2) Investigations carried out within the contiguous region of South Africa. The exclusion criteria encompassed studies that were not related to the phenomenon under investigation. A comprehensive search of the databases yielded a total of 152 papers. Following the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 89 papers were deemed eligible for inclusion in the systematic review. Cooper et al. (2018) employed forward and backward citation chasing to identify an additional 27 papers from the initial set of 89 papers. A total of 107 papers were identified through the literature search guided by PRISMA.

Presentation and Discussion of Findings.
Pre-service teacher education curriculum needs to be decolonised. In a study conducted by Ajani and Simmonds (2022), findings revealed that the participants agitated for the decolonisation of teacher education curriculum, for equity and inclusivity. According to various studies, the Eurocentric curriculum and structures in teacher education should be reviewed as part of the process of including the cultural, socio-economic, political, and knowledge-based indigenous systems of the pre-service teachers (Heleta, 2016; Ajani, 2019; Jansen, 2019; Le Grange, 2019; Ajani, 2022). Decolonising teacher education curriculum suggests that restructuring is needed for the transformation of knowledge that is Eurocentric to provide pre-service teachers with epistemic and formal access to an all-inclusive education (Shay & Peseta, 2016). All-inclusive education is recommended to accommodate diverse groups of individuals in South Africa's learning spaces (Le Grange, 2021). Heleta (2016) concurs that South Africa is a multicultural nation that must be reflected in curriculum design for students.
South Africa is a democratic society that requires pre-service teachers to be socially aware of the diverse communities, and be accountable and responsible, reflective, empathetic, humane and participatory, and firmly situated in the local context. In short, decolonising teacher education is aimed at placing Africa at the centre of learning for preservice teachers, giving them opportunities to reflect on their indigenous stories, languages, knowledge, and culture within the higher education landscape. Heleta (2016) asserts that the decolonisation of higher education can only be genuinely transformative when the diversity of South Africa is reflected in the curriculum. However, Le Grange (2016) cautions that decolonising the curriculum is more complex. An important core activity should be the productive challenging of the dominant epistemic knowledge which has separated various groups of people from their indigenous knowledge and has created unequal development. Thus, through social justice, the educational ground is leveled creating a strong sense among pre-service teachers for equity and inclusion, to grow their human capacities in South Africa's higher education. The inclusion of more educational concepts, methods, and content that recognise the diversity that exists in South Africa will create opportunities for pre-service teachers to develop a strong sense of global relevance.

Need for new concepts in teacher education curriculum.
A teacher education curriculum prepares pre-service teachers for teaching tasks in different communities and should be designed to accommodate local content or insights. Transforming the curriculum for pre-service teacher education curriculum requires driving meaningful changes that people understand and recognise why they are necessary, as well as the integration of new concepts/topics into the learning contents of pre-service teachers in higher education. Thus, integrating key concepts such as the Ubuntu curriculum, and Africanising curriculum, into the teacher education curriculum in South Africa would enable pre-service teachers to compare learning content from various South African communities before moving to the Western world. This could bring about necessary changes to teacher education and initiate processes of decolonising teacher education. Thus, in promoting decolonisation in teacher education in South Africa, African philosophy that talks about indigenous knowledge must be included in teacher education.
Transformation of teacher education requires the integration of key concepts/topics that can transform the curriculum for pre-service teachers. With the introduction of Africanisation or indigenous knowledge to appropriately create a humanising curriculum, teaching and learning in teacher education will make them globally relevant. Inclusion of topics like human rights education, and how to accept other human beings. People should be made to understand how their own past influences others, and how they treat others. The inclusion of human rights education is to make pre-service teachers ethical human beings. Thus, social justice for interpersonal communication and humanist values is needed to advance socially just transformation. The place for African history in transforming teacher education must be emphasised. African history must be taught to our students, to know where they come from. This is African epistemology to get the basic ideas of understanding a community. We need to develop African psychology and African sociology as basic concepts to decolonise teacher education curriculum. Samuel (2012) argues that local history should be taught in teacher education to enable pre-service teachers to have a deeper awareness of the reality that exists in their cultures as well as a respect for the indigenous knowledge that speaks to their local context. Chetty and Knaus (2016) lament that the exclusion of African epistemology in higher education makes students consider their cultures inferior to Western culture. The majority of students are products of the ineffectual and oppressive schooling system in South Africa (Le Grange, 2016). The teacher education curriculum is too theoretical and does not address the needs of diverse communities (Samuel, 2012). Meanwhile, the integration of African indigenous knowledge into the Eurocentric curriculum is to reconstruct the curriculum and accommodate historical moments for pre-service teachers' meaningful experiences (Shizha, 2013;Lumadi, 2021). African indigenous knowledge is rich in many historical events that students can explore as learning experiences and can easily relate to their immediate environments. According to Gabriel (2020), diverse groups in Africa have rich information that explains their histories and indigenous inventions that could be learnt in formal classrooms. These historical moments should be accommodated or integrated into the pre-service teacher curriculum for continuity.
Hoadley (2010) argues that a Eurocentric curriculum advances universal concepts rather than local knowledge. Le Grange (2016) maintains that students in higher education manifest colonised mindsets and behaviours that are unrelated to their local contexts. The students are also not prepared for global competition and resourcefulness (Jansen, 2002). Maserumule (2015) avows that it is time for the decolonisation of higher education to reconfigure students' minds. Thus, Ramrathan (2010) posits that curriculum changes in the education system should be continuously reviewed for curriculum change to be effective. Heleta (2016) agrees that transformation of the curriculum is critical to decolonising teacher education with necessary knowledge systems, through a paradigm shift from dominant Eurocentric knowledge.

Recognition of diverse Indigenous Knowledge Systems and others.
Student protests of 2015 and 2016 highlighted the need for the decolonisation of higher education to give due recognition to the diverse indigenous knowledge systems that exist in South Africa. Findings from the literature show concerns of some scholars that IKS should be included in the teacher education curriculum. We must include an African worldview in our curriculum, to teach our students about the African world. This will help them to cope with problems in our society, using African sociology, metaphysics, psychology, history, and geography as well as ethical teaching and ubuntu to the curriculum. We need to generate ethics from the perspectives of Africa. Indigenous languages are critical to the students, as well as their cultures, and should be an integral part of the teacher education curriculum. Teaching and learning should include all the diverse cultures, which explicitly address the inclusion of African philosophy to provide different views. We need to scrutinize the present curriculum to improve the contents of what students are exposed to. There is a need to focus more on African philosophy to enhance decolonisation. The teacher education curriculum does not reflect South African contexts, as the structure for the present teacher education curriculum is definitely not reflective of South Africa (Ajani, 2022). And that's the strongest argument in my mind is the need to decolonise teacher education, open up debates for social, and cultural tendencies to approach our nature, and make our students more socially responsive. Sandford et al (2012) and Santos (2014) indicate that Eurocentric knowledge that dominated teacher education curriculum does not accommodate students' indigenous knowledge as part of their learning experiences. Santos (2014) called for the Africanisation of universities to challenge colonial knowledge. Similarly, Mbembe (2015) called for the integration of IKS into universities to rehabilitate knowledge. In 2016, Le Grange argued that the Africanisation of higher education curricula was long overdue. Similarly, Mahabeer (2017) called for the dismantling of the teacher education curriculum from Eurocentric epistemologies.

Conclusion.
Decolonising the teacher education curriculum in South Africa is a complicated process that will involve re-imagining, re-structuring, and refocusing knowledge production. Pre-service teachers need to engage in deep intellectual encounters so that they can construct knowledge that speaks to their diverse contexts. Integration of local knowledges does not mean discarding Western knowledge, rather it means vigorous accommodation of both indigenous and Western ideologies for a global worldview. Some scholars argue that pairing Westernised knowledge with IKS will be enough to transform the curriculum to make it context relevant and concomitantly enhance equity and inclusion in education spaces. However, it seems irrefutable that the adoption of social justice is essential to advance the decolonisation of teacher education in the areas of teaching and learning experiences for equity and inclusivity.
Pre-service education environments need to contextualise learning experiences that can make students social change agents. Pre-service teachers are from different environments and possess diverse social backgrounds that should be considered in classroom practices. The findings from this study acknowledged the diversity in unity that exists in South Africa. The existence of these diverse backgrounds requires accommodation into learning spaces alongside the Western knowledge, as a global world view of pre-service teacher curriculum. It was evident from the study that decolonising teacher education is not only necessary but long overdue. Hence, decolonising teacher education provides avenues for the recognition of diverse indigenous knowledges to be integrated into the curriculum as new concepts/topics. These new topics will enable pre-service teachers to adjust appropriately to their immediate environments, using appropriate learning experiences that speak to the local context of their classroom practices.