Indigenous Doctoral Education Policies in the Global South: Postcolonial Policy Borrowing in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and South Africa

While decolonising education policy has attracted much rhetoric, consistent if slow policy change in doctoral education has been evident in the Global South. In former settler/invader colonies, a commitment to social justice necessarily involves addressing the ongoing wrongs of colonisation, with a special focus on changing the conditions of doctoral education for Indigenous peoples. This paper traces policy developments for Māori doctoral students in Aotearoa New Zealand; First Nations Australian doctoral students in Australia and Black majority students in South Africa. This paper draws upon a postcolonial policy borrowing theoretical framework, which foregrounds the academic survivance and sovereignty of First Nations and culturally diverse activists in driving policy borrowing from other First Nations and culturally diverse communities around the globe as the vital catalyst for shifting mainstream national racist discourses and practices and generating sustainable policy change. Secondly, it builds upon Mignolo’s ideas of pluriversality. This article foregrounds the role of Indigenous activists and student and researcher networks and the revival of First Nations and other community languages in doctoral education across Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. We conclude that sustainable change in doctoral education policy will only begin when policy makers begin to enact decolonial policy transfer.