Schools’ history to be ‘Afrocentric’

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga has approved the reappointment of a ministerial task team to amend the history curriculum at South African schools.

The team was appointed to make the curriculum more “Afrocentric and relevant” to the country’s pupils.

This was one of the key recommendations from the task team report released in December 2017 which recommended that the curricula of grades 4-12 be overhauled.

The team’s responsibilities included: developing a new history curriculum from grades 4-12, conducting provincial consultation in the education sector and obtaining inputs into the new history curriculum.

Other responsibilities included screening textbooks to ensure alignments with the new curriculum and to propose history teacher development programmes.

National education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said the task team would once again be led by Sifiso Ndlovu.

Mhlanga said Ndlovu had been given a mandate by Motshekga to “set the direction of history education for the country going forward”.

“Inside and outside of the education sector there has been a lot of excitement and anticipation regarding the overhaul of our history education in schools, which has been characterised by many as perpetuating a colonial or western perspective,” Motshekga said.

“I have absolute faith in the team of experts that is going to be forging the way forward in terms of how we teach our young people about the past.”

She believed that a “comprehensive, well-rounded and accurate teaching” of history would help pupils understand themselves better.