Date: 29/03/2007

Source: Department of Education

Title: Surty: Turning Points in History

Address by the Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Enver Surty MP, at the launch of the series 'Turning Points in History,' Naspers, Cape Town

It gives me great pleasure to say a few words at the launch of the second edition of Turning Points in History, a project developed by the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation.

Thoughtful debate on history is a crucial dimension in the education of young South Africans. If we forget our past, we are in danger of losing our way in the future. As I speak, the Minister is on her way to the Bahamas to address an event in Nassau marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Abolition of the slave trade was certainly a turning point in our history, one that was to have momentous consequences for the population of our country.

The Department of Education has focused on the need to revive the interest among our youth in South African history. We have established the South African History Project that strove to put history back into its rightful place in the educational arena. We have ensured that South African history is at the centre of our National Curriculum and that children will indeed learn about the past. We are encouraging young people to begin to write their own histories for example through the Nkosi Albert Luthuli Young Historians' Competition that started last year.

Education needs to pay close attention to the issues of memory and identity. Through this, our learners will begin to understand that notions of identity are not fixed, and as we move forward to embrace our common South African identity, that the stereotypical notions of culture and the identity of the other, will begin to fall away as we grow in our understanding of the richness of our history and the complexities of who we are as a nation.

The Institute of Justice and Reconciliation (IJR)should be congratulated on its initiative to publish the Afrikaans version of the second edition. The Institute responded to the appeal by teachers during training seminars to translate the Turning Points series into Afrikaans, a project that was published in 2006 under the imprint of Tafelberg publishers. Entitled Keerpunte in die Geskiedenis, the series, like its English counterpart, breaks new ground � to the extent that translators had to invent terminology to describe history topics previously avoided in Afrikaans. The IJR is also to be commended on the level of teacher support provided in the boxed set that includes an interactive CD-Rom in Afrikaans and extensive teacher notes, resource information and learner worksheets.

We do see a revival of public interest in our past. We welcome the increasing number of books written by South Africans that strive to capture the histories of ordinary people in South Africa, whether as formal social histories or as fiction. The commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Youth Uprisings has stimulated a great interest in capturing the memories of many of those who lived through those days � the teachers, individual policemen, the families left behind and the youth themselves. This momentum should not be lost.

For many learners and teachers, history has been something that is written for them in textbooks. They do not realise that history is in fact all around them � in the close and familiar. Our learners should be encouraged engage actively with history by investigating and writing about the histories of their schools, past teachers and learners. They should learn about when and how their schools were started and not shirk from the realities of whether they were built during the height of apartheid or not, or for a particular ethnic or racial group.

They should begin to interrogate whether their schools remain stuck in the traditions of glorifying that ethnic or racial past or indeed strive to meet the challenges of our new democracy. Indeed, teachers should begin to make use of the richness of the immediate world that surrounds them and to bring the community into the classroom. What better why of teaching about values of respect and ubuntu, than to invite our community elders into the classroom to share the richness of their experiences and daily lives.

Through actively engaging in this process, learners will discover very quickly that history is not one single perspective, that there are many interpretations and that they need to engage critically with all sources in order to develop arguments and present their own point of view, based on evidence. What better training for a higher education than a learner who is well versed in critical analysis and developing a coherent argument based on evidence?

The Turning Points series underscores the value of multiple perspectives in conversations about the past. The authors of the essays have adopted the approach that history is a debate or an argument about the past. It is significant that learners and educators are invited to contribute their perspectives, thus becoming co-authors in a shared understanding of history. In this way, learners are given the opportunity to develop the crucial skills of interpretation and critical evaluation within a process of historical enquiry.

The Institute of Justice and Reconciliation's recognition of the indispensable role of education as a force of social change led to the conception of this project. The Turning Points in History Project is the culmination of several years of co-operation between the Institute, the Department of Education through the South African History Project and historians based at several South African universities.

The Department undertook the dissemination of the first edition of the series to 7 500 schools nationwide. It also requested further assistance from the Institute in the form of a second print-run (70 000 copies of the first run had been depleted), further teacher aids based on the books (site indexes, glossaries, learning programmes, overviews compiled on a CD-Rom), provincial training and impact evaluation seminars, and further materials of the same outstanding quality. In the course of these activities, the Institute forged a strong partnership with various directorates within the national Department of Education, as well as with each of the nine provincial departments.

The IJR is to be commended on its approach of not simply producing learning and teaching support materials but also in holding training programmes for educators. I understand that over 450 key history teachers and officials covering each teaching district in each province participated in two-day Turning Points training seminars in each province in South Africa. Participants were drawn mostly from formerly disadvantaged secondary schools across South Africa.

I understand that the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation will continue this process of engaging educators and curriculum specialists in the issues raised in the Turning Points series in a workshop that will be held tomorrow. Again I should like to commend the IJR for this initiative that will raise the level of debate in our classrooms around significant historical processes such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the relationship between values and the teaching of History.

The essays included in these volumes foster understanding, tolerance and civic participation by all South Africans who seek to build an inclusive tomorrow out of a divided past. Engagement with one another's stories, memories and histories is a crucial component of building an inclusive society � and history is a key component in the process.

I am delighted to launch the second edition of Turning Points in History and recommend this to teachers, learners and all South Africans who want to know more of where we came from and where we are seeking to go.

I thank you

Issued by: Department of Education
29 March 2007