The trouble with a ‘decolonised’ curriculum

I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach wealthy prospective donors with a begging bowl. How much more delicious, I imagined during his tenure, to instead be the widely welcomed party that doles out the dosh. But as the administrators of Australia’s Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation have discovered since 2017, it isn’t always easy to give money away.

Funded by a $3 billion bequest from the late healthcare magnate Paul Ramsay, the centre was established in order to revive the flagging humanities at Australian universities. It aspires to found and finance equivalents of the ‘great books’ courses at American schools such as the University of Chicago, where the encompassing and demanding curriculum has drawn ambitious students for a century. Across eight years, Ramsay’s board aims to divide $150 million between three institutions. Each university gets funding for ten new faculty members and at least 30 full student scholarships of between $25,000 and $30,000 apiece. The new BA degree courses are to feature small, intimate classes, rather than the vast, anonymous classes more common Down Under. Keen on the project, I delivered a digital address for the Ramsay Centre last month. Chief executive Simon Haines describes its programme as ‘the biggest thing for the liberal arts and humanities that has ever happened in this country’. What could go wrong?

A great deal, as you might assume if you know anything about the political culture of Australia, which, like so many Commonwealth nations, is woked up the bum. Think the US and the UK are crazed? Canada, Ireland, and Australia are even worse.

The Australian National University was first in the queue for Ramsay cash, and first to turn it down — ostensibly due to concern about loss of independence, though the centre fiercely denies any intention to control either the faculty or the reading lists.