History as a school subject underwent something of a revival between 1994 and 1999. Controversial subjects like history enjoyed a new-found popularity.12 The tone of history writing improved considerably during this time.13
9 E. Bray, ‘Education in Transition: The Impact of the Draft South African Schools Bill of 1996’ in J.De Groof
and E. Bray Education under the New Constitution in South Africa (Leuven, 1996), pp. 39–42, referring to South Africa (RSA), South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 (Pretoria,1996), as quoted by Legodi, ‘The Transformation of Education’, p. 161.
10 Legodi, ‘The Transformation of Education’, p. 162. 11 Ibid., pp. 170, 201–209, 217–220.
12
Ibid., p. 185.
13
N.C.G. Vakalisa, ‘Construction of a school Curriculum Consistent with the Needs of the Country and its People: Uniting and not Polarizing Them’, Paidonomia, 19, 1 (1996), p. 12, as quoted by Legodi, ‘The
Under the GNU, the Legacy Project was launched in 1998 by the Minister of Arts, Culture and Technology. Among the aims of the project were to acknowledge the contribution of all to the country’s heritage; to acknowledge the previously neglected, distorted and marginalised South African heritage and to interpret historical events in a way that did not imply the supremacy of any one race.
During the period of the GNU several new school history textbooks with a totally new approach were published. The Oxford University Press launched a new book In Search of History and Maskew Miller Longman released two series for primary schools, The Broken String and Looking into the Past. The tone and approach to history writing in these books signified an attempt to transform the story of South Africa’s history.14
Along with other syllabi, a revision of the history syllabus was undertaken by the GNU as part of Minister Bengu’s interim revision of school syllabi. Siebörger outlines the disconcerting process which was used to revise the different syllabi.15 The National Education and Training Forum (NETF) conducted the syllabus revision. The NETF was a bargaining forum of various stakeholders in education and represented education departments, business, parent, teacher and student organisations.16 Similarly, the history sub-committee was composed of various stakeholder representatives. These included a departmental official who had served on apartheid- era syllabus committees, five representatives of teacher organisations, a high school and a university student.17
History was now, together with geography, regarded as a sub-field of human and social sciences, which as Siebörger points out, was an arrangement first conceived of by the previous
Transformation of Education’, p. 186.
14 Legodi, ‘The Transformation of Education’, p. 187. 15
Siebörger, ‘History and the Emerging Nation’, page unnumbered.
16 Y. Selati, From History to Human and Social Sciences. The New Curriculum Framework and the End of
History for the General Education and Training Level (Durban, 1997), p. 10, as quoted by Siebörger,
‘History and the Emerging Nation’, page unnumbered.
17
S. Lowry, ‘A Review of the History Curriculum Process’, in J. Reid and R. Siebörger, Proceedings of the
Workshop on School History Textbook Writing from Principles to Practice (Cape Town, 1995), p. 20, as
Department of National Education as part of the educational renewal strategy of the early 1990s. This educational renewal strategy was a counter to the NECC and ANC curriculum initiatives of the time.18
The interim history syllabus had great flexibility. This syllabus, which was first introduced into schools in January 1995, was a five-page document which listed a choice of topics to be covered in each grade, left individual educators to choose between topics and then to devise their own specific content and methodology.19 Dryden recognised that the rationale for the study of history given to guide the educators’ implementation of the curriculum in their classrooms was positive:
History is a systematic study of the past. It is a study based on evidence: a selection of facts and events that are arranged, interpreted and explained. Thus history, in addition to its content, is also a mode of enquiry, a way of investigating the past which requires the acquisition of skills. The events, communities and peoples of the past are studied in order to develop an appreciation of other times and places, but also because they are interesting in themselves. History develops both the imagination and the understanding of people and communities, while a study of recent history is essential for an understanding of the present, just as an understanding of the present is necessary to understand the past.20
The specific aims of the interim syllabus, mentioned in the same document also positively confirm the importance of the discipline and provide an indication of how far the reasons for studying school history had moved since the apartheid era:
To give pupils the sense of such characteristics of historical knowledge as its time dimension; the importance of placing events in their historical context; the
concepts and terminology and the interpretations and perspectives of historical knowledge; the changing state of historical knowledge and contribution made by the related disciplines to historical knowledge.
To give pupils an understanding of such historical skills as the ability to locate evidence (sic), to organise, classify and interpret this evidence in a logical way and to communicate historical ideas.21
18 Siebörger, ‘History and the Emerging Nation’, page unnumbered. 19 S. Dryden, ‘Mirror of a Nation’, p. 6.
20 Western Cape Education Department, ‘Interim Syllabus for History Ordinary Grade, Standards
5, 6 and 7’, 1995, p. 10, as quoted by Dryden, ‘Mirror of a Nation’, p. 6.
21
Western Cape Education Department, ‘Interim Syllabus for History Ordinary Grade, Standards 5, 6 and 7’, 1995, as quoted by Siebörger, ‘History and the Emerging Nation’, page unnumbered.
Not surprisingly, despite the positive elements which the interim history syllabus contained, the interim syllabi were little more than adaptations of old syllabi and few people involved in history education were pleased.
The GNU did however make an effort to begin a transformation of school history. The new syllabus (flawed as its beginnings may have been) and new textbooks which came on the market signaled a clear break from school history education of the past. At least the way was prepared for black South Africans to begin to develop a more positive perception of and relationship with the past.