Racism still on reading list for SA children

Three years after Nelson Mandela became president, many South African children are still being taught history from outdated, often racist, textbooks which most educationalists agree should be in the bin rather than in school satchels.

"Lots and lots of them need to be got rid of," said Orenna Krut, a manager with of one of the country's largest educational publishers, Maskew Miller Longman.

Until recently the fiefdom of Afrikaner publishing houses, the bulk of South Africa's history textbooks are full of the eurocentric emphases and historical distortions once considered necessary to sustain and legitimise Apartheid.

But rather than throw the books out, teachers and parents have little option other than to continue using them, for some age groups, until beyond the turn of the century.

While preparations are well underway for the introduction of a new school programme, called "Curriculum 2005", the anticipated change to new teaching methods and materials will take many years.

At a function in Cape Town on Monday, South Africa's education minister, Professor Sibusiso Bengu, formally received the official report on Curriculum 2005 from his technical advisory committee. According to Sheila Sisulu, an adviser to Bengu, the programme hopes to wean students from a textbook- dependent approach to education and encourage the use of multi-media resources. The textbooks that are used will be new or rewritten to give a more balanced view of South Africa's past.

Once approved, the new syllabus will be overhauled from next year, two school years at a time, and is scheduled to take until the end of 2004. Delays in defining the curriculum have, however, made it difficult for educational publishers to prepare appropriate texts in time.

"The learning programmes for next year are still not available and it's March already. It is physically not possible for us to wait ... Publishers are just trying to guess and do the best we can," Ms Krut said.

In the process of rewriting history, though, dangers lurk in the temptation to produce a "victor's history" as distorted one way as the previous ones were the other, according to one historian engaged in writing the new textbooks. "The temptation to glorify the struggle is bound to have an effect on history writing, replacing an Afrikaner nationalist text with a liberation movement narrative," the historian said.

The new curriculum is scheduled to be introduced in February next year.