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Welcome to all of you present here today at this very important and unique gathering of people concerned about education in our beloved South Africa. You are here because of your interest and passion for education. You are here because the curriculum of your own schooling marked you for better or worse. You have something to say about it, you always will, and so you should. We all come from a history of the pain that has been wrought by those who have shaped curriculum in our country: For Afrikaners, the scars of the processes of anglicisation of the early twentieth century are still visible. For black people, the wounds inflicted by apartheid education have not yet healed. For this reason, our process of curriculum transformation is one that cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. So permit me a few minutes on this very important topic.

SIGNIFICANCE OF A NATIONAL CURRICULUM

The development of a national curriculum is a major challenge for any nation. At its broadest level, our education system and its curriculum expresses our idea of ourselves as a society and our vision as to how we see the new form of society being realised through our children and learners. Through its selection of what is to be in the curriculum, it represents our priorities and assumptions of what constitutes a 'good education' at its deepest level.

This draft revised National Curriculum Statement has been written by South Africans and for South Africans who hold dear the principles and practices of democracy. It encapsulates our vision of teachers and learners who are knowledgeable and multi-faceted, sensitive to environmental issues and able to respond to and act upon the many challenges that will still confront South Africa in this twenty first century.

WHAT A CURRICULUM CAN AND CANNOT ACHIEVE

But we must also be realistic about what a curriculum can and cannot achieve. Inequality and poverty still plague the educational experience of too many families and their children. The curriculum is and will be differently interpreted and enacted in diverse contexts. We will improve and implement it to the best of our ability. We will also make the most strenuous efforts to enable the realisation of its vision through addressing all those issues which make up teaching and learning. This will undoubtedly require the commitment and participation of all who work in education.

PARTICIPATION AND PUBLIC COMMENT

Beginning in 1997, we came up with a curriculum framework which is based on our Constitution and which encapsulates our vision for the achievement of the opposite of what was done to us through education. C2005 was produced in a broad and consultative process in 1997/8. On that everyone is agreed. Barely two years after the start of implementation of C2005, we reviewed the curriculum. And we acted on its recommendations in good faith in order to produce a better and more humane curriculum. In the streamlining process, we had a Reference Group that represented major national stakeholders, from the publishers to school governing bodies to teacher unions to professional associations. That streamlining happened and we made the revision available for public comment. And now we are having a public hearing.

This is a unique process anywhere in the world. It would probably not be countenanced in France or the UK, let alone the United States. Nor would expectations that everyone in the country read a draft revision of an existing curriculum be an expectation. In most countries, curriculum is the work of teachers and experts.

I have gone way beyond what the law expects of me in terms of distribution of this draft revised National Curriculum Statement. In terms of the law, I am required to gazette it and distribute it to specified bodies only. I distributed it to a wider range of groups than this, including all the national education structures represented on the Reference Group. I have expected them to familiarise their constituencies with it. And most of them have. The NCS has been available on our website for close to two and a half months in bite-sized chunks, and individuals who have requested it have received the draft in wine boxes of attractively designed booklets.

Of course it goes without saying that those who follow curriculum developments in this country knew long before it would appear WHEN it would appear and made their arrangements to get their copies long ahead of time. Since publishing the draft, and well within the time provided for comment, we have indeed received well over 200 substantial submissions. The most valuable have been from professional bodies, who have the most expertise in this regard. Inputs ranged over everything from values to the nature and character of assessment standards and assessment in general to implementation.

We have also been inundated by letters from parents and religious organisations. Although large in number the curricular concerns were few. Many of these appear to have been misinformed about the curriculum in some pretty fundamental ways. I must also say that many of them were so outlandish that they read to me as though they had been written for an American Cold War context rather than for ours. 'Cold war relics' is how Rumsfeld would describe them. Nonetheless, we have taken their concerns seriously. Representation of their organisations here today is evidence of that.

ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC COMMENT

All the submissions we have received have been analysed in order to revise the National Curriculum Statement. Many of your smaller comments as well as your larger comments have been taken into consideration. Of course, it is not possible for me to respond individually to each of you on whether and how your comments will be incorporated. And not all of them will be. This is largely because the comments were also often extremely contradictory. Whereas one group, for example, has called for more history of women, African and San people, others have called for precisely the opposite. We have to create a balanced and humane curriculum - and this will be our yardstick in assessing such competing interests.

NATIONAL CURRICULUM STATEMENT WELCOMED AS A VAST IMPROVEMENT

Of greatest importance however is that almost each and every one of the more than 200 substantial submissions began with an opening statement about how this revised National Curriculum Statement is welcomed, what an improvement it is and that it does constitute a streamlining and strengthening of C2005. For those of you concerned about these matters, I have every intention of allowing enough time, and dedicating enough resources to ensuring the effective implementation of this curriculum. As almost every submission without exception noted, its success depends on teacher education and adequate learning support materials. Let it be known that I have heard this message loud and clear.

CAMPAIGN

There has, I regret to say, been an orchestrated and bizarre campaign against this revision. This very serious exercise by extremely committed and hard-working professional from across the country has been accused of being everything from unconstitutional indoctrination to the work of the devil and the anti-Christ.

A WORD TO THE ORIGINATORS OF THE CAMPAIGN

I am aware of the origins of this campaign. Regrettably, they lie in the same source of groupings which recently lost their appeal to the Constitutional Court to be allowed to beat their children. As far as I know, they have still not complied with the requirement to make a statement in this regard, agreeing to comply with the law banning corporal punishment in schools.

This same grouping has now embarked on an energetic letter writing exercise on the curriculum, largely based on scurrilous misrepresentation if not serious misunderstanding and misreading of the curriculum.

The letters in the press and sent to me and my staff have displayed a remarkable lack of respect on the part of the letter-writers for others, for the human dignity of others. The people who write these letters demean their own humanity by their dehumanisation of others.

Many of the letters we received were also fraudulent. See this bag of acknowledgement letters returned from addresses or persons unknown.

Of greatest concern to me about this campaign has been the anti-educational methods that have been used. Many of the letters we received were quite frankly motivated by and written in hysteria and fear. Many of the parents had been told that religious freedom was being trampled upon through an ungodly curriculum focused on indoctrination, sex education and inter-faith practices which force the religious beliefs of one religious grouping upon another. As though the curriculum was not concerned in the slightest with improving the language and mathematical competency of our children. As though its main emphasis was not on the holistic development of the child.

A WORD TO PARENTS

Let me reassure those parents who have had fear struck into their hearts: I am a human being, and both I and the people who produced this curriculum are human beings who seek the best for all our children. Our aim is not to hurt or harm you in any way. Your rights are already protected in innumerable ways. Do not fear. Fear only fear itself. Find your feet, your head and heart and remember that we are all in the same boat together trying to find our way forward in the same ship.

Let me reassure you again. Home-schooling is permitted in South Africa. The right to religious practice in schools is also protected through the South African Schools Act.

But let me also reassure those parents who have different fears from these.

Firstly, let us please note a pedantic but important point: a curriculum does not indoctrinate - teachers do. Our teacher training must be as careful as our curriculum to ensure the achievement of dedicated and professional teachers able to do their job well, think critically and solve the many problems they will face in their professional lives. We do not want indoctrinators. We want good teachers in the best sense of that word.

Secondly, I have had a series of meetings recently with religious leaders of all faiths. I have explained to them our views on religion in education and solicited their comments on this. I have had near-unqualified support. This is itself and especially in these times is a remarkable show of religious tolerance by these leaders.

Thirdly, our public hearings are being held on the same day as the trial of the rapists of small girls. The pain and suffering of these girls, let alone boys who are also raped and abused by family members and acquaintances, is not something we as educationists with a moral purpose can leave unattended. We must address this in our schools, sensitively, in order to prevent such actions, to help the victims and enhance the moral values of our homes and society at large.

A WORD TO THE PRESENTERS HERE TODAY

Our purpose today is to hear your representations. A wide range of constituencies applied to come. Of the 59 who applied, only 16 have made it to the hearings. I appeal to you to use your time well and not to make statements unrelated to the curriculum or use the opportunity for grandstanding. We have had to limit time to 10 minutes each, and I ask you to respect this constraint. We have your presentations to read if we cannot hear you out fully.

The presentations at this meeting will be added to the public comment received to date and form part of the analysis and recommendations for the way forward.

A WORD TO THE MEDIA

This is a public hearing, and the media are welcome. We have given you copies of the presentations and we trust you will reflect accurately what has been said, and by whom, so that the public can make up its own mind on the real merits of the revised National Curriculum Statement.

Issued by the Ministry of Education, 13 November 2001