Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies

This research aims to find out how the persistence of Eurocentric content, pedagogical methods, and assessment practices in the South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) impact the identities, learning experiences, and the sense of belonging of African learners in educational environments. The study is situated within frameworks of decolonial theory, Africanisation, and critical pedagogy, and it delves into the effects of learner disengagement due to epistemic exclusion, the neglect of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), and the dominance of Western epistemologies. A qualitative research design was utilized, and data were collected through semi structured interviews with teachers and learners, classroom observations, and document analysis, which together provided in depth, localised understandings of the ways in which curriculum and pedagogy reproduce the colonial legacy of inequalities. The results signalled that the absorption of Eurocentric curriculum purposes led South African learners to experience a loss of identity, cultural alienation, and limited cognitive engagement, while Afrocentric, contextualised, and culturally sustaining pedagogies had a remarkable effect on learners' self-confidence, participation, and the sense of academic meaningfulness. This study contends that the decolonisation of the curriculum entails more than just a superficial cultural insertion. It requires a comprehensive structural epistemic change that places African cosmologies, vernacular languages, and community-based knowledge at the core as valid forms of academic inquiry. The suggestions highlight teacher training, policy restructuring, IKS inclusion, and pedagogical change as ways to make education an authentic reflection of the African reality and a means to prepare learners for socially grounded futures.