Decolonising Access to Education

Decolonisation has the best of intentions: eradicating the in-built advantages and privileges of western education. You know, those university courses that base their teaching on research conducted, taught and published within their part of the developed world. It is another way of saying that university education is dominated by whites. All of us working in education, who have a conscience, are pushing against this but the truth is that life is not that simple: universities are not havens of imperial privilige, instead boasting substantial diversity amongst the faculty and student bodies. Not perfect, of course, but we are doing our best. 

Which makes our blind spot all the more egregious: cost. Our lovely universities do not come cheap and, not surprisingly, only wealthy countries with wealthy citizens can afford the best. And where does this wealth come from? Innovation, hard work and a history of subjugating poorer countries! How many students from the non-developed world mortgage their family assets so that they can come and admire the institutions their ancestors helped to create? How grateful must they be to pay a premium over the home students so that they can be permitted to sit shoulder to shoulder with them in class? Perhaps we should be thankful that all students are equal in being charged exorbitant prices for textbooks, even if they are unequal in their ability to pay. 

AutoCognition would like to take the first tiny steps to putting that right. The textbook, Managing International Business, is on sale as an affordable ebook (see below as well as Amazon) and the teaching/learning materials are available for free here. I have my day job, I won't starve if the royalities are cut, but if other academics follow this policy then we can put quality textbooks in the hands of students around the world and finally decolonise education!

Managing International Business is designed for university students around the world. It is used as a core text at the University of Greenwich and internationally by partner institutions. It is written in an engaging style and regularly updated to include the latest hot topics. Importantly, it is on sale as an affordable ebook (Amazon being one place) and the teaching/learning materials are available for free here. This means that students can buy more textbooks and not resort to the dodginess of the internet!

Blogs will appear here whenever I, or any guests, get a certain bee under the bonnet!