Learning Anew:
Truth and Reconciliation in Education

by

Veerle Dieltiens

Race and Citizenship in Transition Series, 2005.

Veerle Dieltiens is an independent consultant.

Acknowledgements

This report is one in a series of products in the Race and Citizenship Series. Thank you to the Ford Foundation, Development Cooporation Ireland and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for generously funding this report and the series.

Many thanks to Bronwyn Harris and Nahla Valji for their thoughtful and insightful comments.

Contents Race and Citizenship in Transition Series Executive Summary Introduction The Context: Reconciliation, Restorative Justice and Human Rights Outside the TRC's mandate Transforming education in the post-apartheid era    Policy Formulation: 1994-1999       Reconciliation       Restorative Justice       Human Rights    Stepping-up on the social mandate of education: 1999-2004       The Valued Citizen       Box 1: sixteen strategies for making the values operational Curriculum change    Truth and reconciliation in the history curriculum The TRC as a model for 'peace' education Conclusion Notes References

The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series¹

Bronwyn Harris, Nahla Valji, Brandon Hamber and Carnita Ernest

Race and citizenship are extremely complex concepts. In post-apartheid South Africa, they find expression on many different levels, including identity, conflict, nationalism, history, politics and inter-personal relationships. They occupy a spectrum ranging from everyday practices and interactions, to formal political and macro-economic forces. They also overlap with notions of reconciliation, justice and reparation, and, although they are separate notions with different histories, they overlap with each other. This creates an added dimension of complexity. Both race and citizenship can be (and commonly are) articulated and/or silenced to serve particular interests. Both can also feed into certain forms of violence, including xenophobia and racially motivated hate crime. Any analysis of race and citizenship must therefore acknowledge the complexity of their expression, representation and impact. Such complexity in the South African context must be assessed in relation to the country's apartheid history, as well as the processes of reconciliation best captured by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Apartheid created race as a mechanism for violence. Race, in and of itself, was the social and psychological reality through which repression and violence functioned. Racism was institutionalised, legalised and internalised. South Africans saw the world in 'black' and 'white' terms and violence was commonly used to maintain this status quo. However, during the Mandela era (1994-1999), a new vocabulary emerged to describe the social order. This vocabulary spoke of nationhood, unity, racial harmony and reconciliation. South Africa was described as a 'rainbow nation'. Reference to race entered a sensitive and delicate terrain. This was a positive attempt to give South Africans a new language for speaking about – and to - each other. But, at the same time, it rendered the real, often violent, consequences of race invisible. In the Mandela era, there was little national debate on how race had influenced past human rights violations. There was also little recognition that race continues to shape identity and interactions – violent or not – within the present.

By contrast, the Mbeki era (1999-ongoing) has been characterised by a 'return to race'. This is partly a consequence of different presidential styles and roles – while Mandela had to stress forgiveness and underplay racial issues in order to consolidate a peaceful (and at times precarious) transition, Mbeki, as he stated in his 'two nations speech', has had to deal with economic inequality rooted in past racial practices. Additionally, the 'return to race' has been forced upon the society by violence: through the actions of white extremists like the Boeremag, as well as less political cases of racist hatred. Less violent expressions of/about race have also re-entered popular and political discourse: in 2000, the Human Rights Commission held hearings into racism in the media, and, in 2001, South Africa hosted the World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Although race can be read across these two discrete eras - 1994-1999 and 1999-ongoing - it is important not to oversimplify or reduce the differences to how race has been articulated. Despite a general 'return to race' post-1999, there have been numerous contradictions and striking silences on the issue; for example, within the realm of violence and conflict, as well as Mbeki's own discourse (in 1996, he gave his inclusive 'I am an African' speech, which contrasted with his 'two nations' speech in 1999, but at the opening of parliament in 2001, he seemed to discard the two nations analogy in favour of a 'united' South Africa, irrespective of race). Also, while issues of race have partially emerged in the Mbeki era, the notion of reconciliation – particularly racial reconciliation - has become increasing invisible. The TRC finally completed its work in March 2003. Many have interpreted this as the end of South Africa's reconciliation process. However, incidents of racial prejudice, intolerance and violence, both within South Africa and internationally, suggest that the TRC was just the beginning and not the end of a sorely needed social dialogue about racial reconciliation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

South Africa did not 'invent' the truth commission. Since 1974 there have been more than twenty-five truth commissions around the world. But it was the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that captured the world's attention. This is partly due to international interest in the fight against apartheid. Also, the TRC was the largest and best resourced commission, and it was afforded extensive media coverage, both domestically as well as internationally. This ensured that the world was exposed to the Commission, and the openness of the process meant that the violence of the past could no longer be denied. The South African model also attracted scrutiny because it promised an alternative way of peacefully resolving entrenched difference through the unique 'truth for amnesty'² deal upon which it was premised. Consequently, the notion of using a truth commission to deal with political conflict has gained momentum and many countries are now holding their own Commissions.

TRC Chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that without the compromises made during the negotiations to ensure majority rule in South Africa, the country would have gone up in flames. From this perspective it follows that the agreement by the African National Congress (ANC) to grant amnesty to perpetrators of apartheid violence was a pragmatic choice. Amnesty was the price, albeit a costly one for victims, for saving the innumerable lives that would have been lost if the conflict had continued. However, unlike in most transitional countries to date, amnesty in South Africa was neither blanket nor automatic. Conditions applied to the South African amnesty and the TRC was the vehicle for this process.

The TRC process began in December 1995 and finished in March 2003, when the Commission handed over the final 2 volumes of its 7 volume report. 7 116 people applied for amnesty. Almost 22 000 people came forward and told how they were victimised under apartheid. The TRC made a number of recommendations to the South African government regarding financial and symbolic reparations, issues of justice and ways to address relationships between South Africans. It is these issues that still need to be grappled with and addressed.

Evaluating the TRC

The public acknowledgement of past violations was perhaps the TRC's greatest success; as the brutal horrors of apartheid found their way, via the media, into the living rooms of every South African. An undeniable historical record has been created. However, apartheid history still remains contested and fraught with racialised interpretations; for example, many white South Africans continue to deny the impact of apartheid and many dismissed the TRC itself as a 'political witch-hunt' (cf. Thiessen, 1996³). The role of the TRC - in both writing history and as an historical process itself – demands ongoing scrutiny.

At a narrower, more immediate level, a minority of victims did uncover suppressed truths about the past. In some cases, missing bodies have been located, exhumed and respectfully buried. For others, the confessions of perpetrators have brought answers to previously unsolved political crimes – crimes, which the courts, due to expense and inefficiencies, may never have tried. However, for many, the TRC began a process that it was unable to complete. Many of the victims who went before the TRC, with the hope that their case would be investigated, feel let down and no closer to the truth than before they publicly told of their suffering. Irrespective of the feasibility of investigating every case, victims' high expectations of the TRC have been dashed, and in their eyes, this has undermined its credibility.

Justice also remains a burning issue. Politicians may be able to justify the exchange of formal justice for peace, but it was difficult for victims to watch while the perpetrators received amnesty. Not only were many perpetrators 'let off the hook', victims feel let down and disappointed by the government's response to the TRC. Regarding financial reparations, the Commission recommended that the government should pay those victims identified through the TRC process R3 billion, in annual installments over a 6 year period (this total figure represents 0.001% of the country's annual R300 billion budget, which translates into R136 000 per individual). However, the South African government has only agreed to pay R30 000 per individual, in a once off payment. The Commission also recommended that business and other apartheid beneficiaries should pay a once-off wealth tax and that the country's inherited apartheid debt (which accounts for approximately 20% of the government's annual budget) should be restructured in order to free up money for development and redistribution. Again, the government chose to ignore these recommendations. This has left victims feeling betrayed. It also does not bode well for long-term reconciliation. As CSVR researchers, Polly Dewhirst & Nahla Valji (2003) note,

The 'miracle' of a new SA is hardly sustainable if it is built without restoring the dignity and humanity of the majority of its citizens, nor if it fails to address the economic inequalities which fuel social conflict.⁴

There are also debates about the broader merits of the TRC. At the very least the reconciliation project, with the TRC at the helm, has brought South Africa through the transition period with relative political stability. The humanist approach of Mandela and Tutu brought compassion to a brutalised country. Despite the horrors revealed by the TRC, glimmers of humanity shone through and provided hope for the future.

However for some, despite the merits of the TRC, 'reconciliation' is merely a euphemism for the compromises made during political negotiations - compromises that ensured continued white control of the economy. From this perspective, reconciliation is meaningless without structural change. A related, more cynical view is that the rapprochement between the old and new regimes was a strategy to consolidate a new black elite under the banner of reconciliation.

Many argue that the TRC missed the bigger picture by defining victims only as those who suffered intentional violence. Because the TRC focused on victims of gross human rights violations, such as torture and murder – it did not include the 'ordinary' victims of apartheid – the millions of South Africans who suffered from land removals, forced displacements, the migrant-labour system, Bantu education etc. As such the TRC did not engage directly with the institutionalised, structured ways in which racist policies affected and victimised people on a daily basis. Those who suffered more broadly from the economic ravages of apartheid and were not victimized directly by political violence were excluded from the TRC. An important question to ask is: what mechanisms do those, excluded from the apartheid state and then from the TRC, have for defining and consolidating a sense of citizenship in the 'new' South Africa?

Similarly, the degree to which the TRC used race as an explanatory variable in its understanding of the abuses it investigated remains questionable. In some cases, 'race' was generally collapsed into 'political motive', as exemplified by the amnesty decisions in the Amy Biehl, Chris Hani and St James' Massacre cases. However, this was done inconsistently and the relationship between race and politics was not clearly defined. Overall, the reconciliation process engaged less with 'black and white' issues then with inconsistent 'political' definitions of perpetrators and victims. This has had the after-effect of divorcing race, and racial identity, from the violence of the past. It similarly keeps race separate from understandings of violence in the present.

A related point is that, as a transitional justice mechanism, the TRC accepted and legitimated certain explanations for the violence of the past. In this way, it has played a key role in influencing the society's moral reactions to violence. This is specifically evident in the area of amnesty. The question needs to be asked, despite the compromises made to set up the TRC, has amnesty undermined South African citizens' sense of morality? Has it contributed to ongoing violence and impunity? Has it impacted upon how different race groups see each other? There have been various evaluations of the TRC, but none have taken into account the ways in which it has explicitly addressed race, morality and citizenship as components of past human rights violations and factors in contemporary social relations. It is precisely these questions that the Race and Citizenship in Transition Series has sought to address.

The different perspectives surrounding the TRC demonstrate the complexity of dealing with oppression and violence – and how past events shape the process of reconciliation.

The TRC was not alone in its attempts to build reconciliation in South Africa. A number of other institutions were set up to deal with the legacy of the past. These included for example the Land Claims Court and the Human Rights Commission. Other structures, such as the Independent Complaints Directorate, were set up to monitor ongoing abuses by the police. However the degree to which these institutions, and the TRC can be said to have consolidated reconciliation and effected transformation can, at best, be described as ongoing but desperately incomplete. There are ongoing police abuses, young people still express feelings of marginalisation, racism and racist incidents continue to take place, and the poor have not substantially benefited from the changes in the country.

Levels of Reconciliation

The process of reconciliation can be said to operate on a number of levels, i.e. the political, community and individual levels.

At the political level, reconciliation has been embodied in the compromises that lead to a political peace. This process can be said to be broadly successful, as it has brought political stability to South Africa.

At the community level, despite some successes by the TRC, reconciliation is largely incomplete, with many of the old racial and political divisions remaining in place. This is evidenced through high levels of residential segregation between black and white South Africans residentially. It is also expressed between different groups divided along political affiliation, such as ANC and IFP supporters, and xenophobic hostility between South Africans and foreigners, particularly those from elsewhere in Africa.

At the individual level, the question is far more complex and is bound to how individuals feel in relation to the process of reconciliation. Many individual victims feel that their needs have not been met by the TRC. At the same time, many of those who benefited from apartheid are still denying their complicity status. This is linked to the many who refuse any responsibility for reparations and redressing the past. There is also an expectation that the next generation will somehow begin with a 'clean slate' (Oakley-Smith⁵). The ongoing impact of a racist and violent past continues to play out through incidents of racist hate crimes and expressions of xenophobia. Hostility towards foreigners, particularly black Africans, commonly results in violence and is spurred on by overly zealous views of nationalism in the 'new' South Africa. In addition, many South Africans are finding themselves questioning their role in the country. This could be linked to the many young people who are leaving the country as they feel there is no future for them in South Africa.

A Crisis of Citizenship

We would like to suggest that there is a 'crisis of citizenship' in South Africa at present, which threatens the genuine reconciliation begun through processes such as the TRC. This crisis manifests itself in ordinary people asking where they belong in the new society. This crisis suggests that there is much work that needs to be done to consolidate the process of reconciliation and a sense of inclusive citizenship. The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series is a space for exploring this citizenship crisis, along with the related issues of race, reconciliation, violence and identity in South Africa. Key issues to be examined include:

• Racially motivated violence. To what extent does race continue to impact on patterns and trends of violence? How relevant is the concept 'hate crime' to the South African context? What challenges does the criminal justice system face in dealing with racially motivated violence?
• Race and the TRC. As a key instrument of transition, how did the TRC engage with the racism of South Africa's past? How has this impacted on the telling of history and contemporary understandings of racial relations?
• Lessons from Guatemala. There are many parallels between Guatemala and South Africa: historically, both countries were based on racist political systems, which resulted in racialised inequality and conflict. Both countries set up truth commissions to address their pasts and engage with citizenship in the future. Both countries continue to be marred by violence. What lessons can South Africa learn from the Guatemalan transition?
• Young people and race. How do young people conceive of citizenship, identity and racial reconciliation? The views expressed by the younger generation provide a means by which to evaluate the degree to which South African society has, or has not, transformed; as well as the longer-term influences of transitional processes.
• Institutional transformation and the legacy of racism. What recommendations and findings did the TRC make about transformation in the South African Police Services, schools, and efforts to address racism in South African institutions?

The Race and Citizenship in Transition Series is funded by the Ford Foundation, Development Cooperation Ireland and the Charles Stewart-Mott Foundation.

Series Editors

Bronwyn Harris
Nahla Valji

 

Executive Summary

This study investigates the impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on education transformation since the advent of democracy in South Africa. Although the TRC never directly addressed the role of education under apartheid (and this report suggests reasons for this omission), the Commission did provide the context and terms upon which the transformation of South African institutions could be judged. This report analyses the extent to which both the structural changes that took place in education after 1994 and the implementation of curriculum abided by the TRC's notions of restorative justice, reconciliation and human rights.

It is noted that on the TRC's criteria for change, education has transformed relatively slowly, especially in the early period. This may have been because policy implementation was hamstrung by budgetary constraints, but policy itself was sometimes contradictory. Curriculum 2005, for example, displayed a minimal multi-culturalism while at the same time radically shifting methodological practices.

In the later periods, from 1999, as policy implementation stepped up, so greater efforts were made to build human rights into the curriculum and push for greater restorative justice. In addition, initiatives such as the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy consciously set about encouraging constitutional values in education, which were more aligned with the TRC's own nation-building undertaking. A closer investigation of the history curriculum provides further evidence of the education system backing the TRC's transformationagenda.

Introduction

As the apartheid chapter in history came to a close, South Africans – having been divided for centuries along lines of race, class, gender and ethnicity – were to take a leap into peaceful co-existence. But lingering memories and continuing material realities of conflict and brutality made the transition tenuous without some facilitation to reconciliation. The idea of reconciliation found an institutional home in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (hereafter referred to as the TRC). But the TRC had a limited timeframe and specific mandate, while the process of reconciliation was conceptualized as on-going and intended to reach across all institutions. The impact of the TRC in embedding reconciliation into institutional transformation is therefore one measure of its success. This report investigates whether, and to what extent, the transformation of education⁶ in the post-1994 period was influenced by the TRC. While educational change was kick-started before the TRC began operating,⁷ this study set out to establish the extent to which the TRC's findings and recommendations shaped (or reflected) the direction that education policy was taking in changing both the schooling system and the curriculum.

This report begins by summarizing the TRC's terms for reconciliation against which educational change can be measured. This is followed by a clarification of the TRC's mandate. The role of education under apartheid was never directly addressed by the Commission and the report explores possible reasons for its omission. The report then turns to evaluating how the discourse of the TRC is translated into education policy. It appraises firstly whether education policy matches the TRC's notions of reconciliation and restorative justice, and secondly how these terms have been mediated into classrooms through the curriculum. An analysis of the history curriculum is particularly relevant because the TRC itself is a source for historical data. Furthermore, the teaching of history, more than any other subject area, most overtly throws up questions of values, identity and reconciliation.

Research for this study was based primarily on a policy and literature review. This was supplemented with interviews with people involved in the Commission, a writer of history textbooks and a lecturer of history education. No classroom observations or interviews with educators were conducted, and a valuable follow-up study to this report would be an investigation into daily classroom practices to discover how the history curriculum is taught. However, the findings of this report are corroborated by CSVR's experience in schools, in particular with the Race and Reconciliation Project.

The Context: Reconciliation, Restorative Justice and Human Rights

The TRC was a key statutory driver in South Africa's transformation agenda. It looked back on the country's past while establishing a new discourse for the post-apartheid state. When it began its work in December 1995, the TRC, comprised of three committees; namely the Human Rights Violations Committee, the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee and the Amnesty Committee; set about collecting statements from victims on their individual experiences of apartheid abuses, bringing to account the perpetrators behind atrocities and granting (or refusing) amnesty. When it published the first five volumes of its report in October 1998, the Commission had drawn on over 21 000 statements of human rights violations and received in excess of 7000 applications for amnesty.⁸

Uncovering the truth, acknowledging the victims and exposing the culpability of offenders, was the path chosen to reconciliation. As Du Toit explains: 'For the victims of gross violations of human rights, the TRC's hearings involved a notion of truth as acknowledgement and justice as recognition (by publicly recognising them as sources of truth and bearers of rights), vital to the process of restoring their civic and human dignity' (2004, p. 66). Public hearings, often with shocking revelations, opened up space for offenders and victims to confront one another, guilt to be acknowledged and, in the process, healing to take place.⁹

The TRC was self-consciously involved in a nation-building project, from the Act that established it to the discourse of the Commissioners themselves. While it uncovered a litany of abuses and injustices, it also gave voice to the values the new state sought to uphold. Richard Wilson argues that the TRC was essentially engaged in constructing a new national identity, 'illustrated in the discursive associations drawn between truth, reconciliation and nationalism' (2001, p. 13). Although definitions shifted during the lifespan of the TRC, central throughout the process was the notion of restorative (rather than retributive) justice. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains: 'Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment but, in the spirit of ubuntu, the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken promises' (1999, p. 51). Vital to the TRC's philosophy was the general notion that reconciliation must be accompanied by transformation along the lines of human rights and equality. The Commission recommended that reconciliation be fostered through: the alleviation of poverty, closing the gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged; a commitment to transformation in both the corporate sphere and government structures; and assistance to victims of gross human rights violations through reparations and rehabilitation (TRC Report, 1998).

With the idea of restorative justice, the TRC provided both the context and content for transformation generally. In this sense, the term 'transformation' constructs the conditions for the new nation state: reconciliation, redress and the securing of human rights. These provide the benchmarks against which the structural changes of the education system can be judged. They also have a bearing on the epistemological approach of the curriculum.

The notion of transformation that underlines both the TRC and education must be understood within the context of South Africa's negotiated settlement. The Constitutional framework that was hammered out between the apartheid government and its foes set the parameters for the trajectory of transformation. The compromises of that negotiation, the conciliatory spirit of the Mandela presidency and the human rights language of the Constitution set the tone for the new array of legal documents that built the scaffold for the emerging nation state. Both the TRC and the education system fit as planks in this nation-building project. Fullard and Rousseau point out that the TRC was an instrument of a nation building project: 'As such, truth commissions and other transitional justice mechanisms do not exist impartially outside of power, but are deeply part of the broader lines of contestation within society' (2003, p. 81).

Similarly, the new education bureaucrats were poised to transform the schooling system within the broader dictates. Ihron Rensburg, Deputy Director-General in the Department of Education (DoE) from 1994 to 1999, reflects that:

Few of us fully understood how our anti-apartheid and national liberation struggle identities would be integrated into our new identities as national public service managers. Moving to a state building programme clearly requires a whole new set of predispositions – an analytical frame associated with creating and occupying, as some will suggest, the high ground of a new state in which one no longer represents only the interests of the majority of the people (and of course the national liberation struggle), but in which one is now clearly engaged in a process of state building (2001, p. 122).

Outside the TRC's mandate

Initially, it seems that the TRC went with a strictly legal reading of its mandate to provide 'as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights' committed between 1 March 1960 and 10 May 1994 (Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, No. 34 of 1995). On a narrow interpretation of the Act, the education system did not fall within the TRC's mandate. Gross human rights violations were defined by the Act as abuses committed on an individual, including killing, abduction, torture or severe ill-treatment of any person. According to the Act, apartheid as a policy was not directly listed as a human rights violation per se – rather the political struggles and conflict that resulted from its implementation gave rise to human rights violations. With this understanding, Dr Russell Ally notes: 'Gross human rights violations didn't happen in education per se. Education was a site of struggle: Soweto 1976 and events in 1985 were issues of human rights violations' (interview, 11 October 2004).

The TRC's narrow reading of gross human rights violations, which focused on the victims of direct political repression and so left out the wider structural violations of the apartheid system, has been much criticized. Most notably Mahmood Mamdani has argued: 'Victims of apartheid are now narrowly defined as those militants victimized as they struggled against apartheid, not those whose lives were mutilated in the day-to-day web of regulations that was apartheid' (1996, p. 6). While the Human Rights Violations Committee did later hold special hearings which began to look at the duplicity of institutions in supporting apartheid,¹⁰ apartheid policy remained largely outside the scope of interrogation. The hearings on health, for example, did not engage with health policy but focused on the role of health professionals, in particular to their treatment of detainees (cf. Ernest, 2001).

Education was on the list of possible special hearings, but, as former TRC Commissioner Dr Faizel Randera suggests, was probably not strongly enough motivated for. Many of the special hearings appear to have been promoted from within the Commission based on personal interests. A strong contingent of health professionals on the TRC, for example, may explain why the health sector was included. Randera notes that the expectation in the Commission was that other sectors, such as business and education, would undertake 'truth commission' inquiries in their own time (interview, 16 September 2004).

Apart from the strictures of the legal requirements, the primary reason that education sector hearings were not held was simply that the Commission had insufficient time, resources and capacity (interviews Randera, Lewin and Ally). Ally notes that education was very decentralized, making it difficult to pinpoint who to call as witnesses. It was far easier to target institutions with national bodies that could be called to hearings, such as with the business sector (interview, 11 October 2004).

The role played by education in bolstering apartheid, therefore, generally escaped critical dissection. Yet education was a bulwark of the apartheid system. Its very intention was to impede the educational opportunities of black learners, as the then education minister H.F. Verwoed famously declared, education was to prepare black learners to be 'hewers of wood and drawers of water'. 'The school,' he said, 'must equip the Bantu to meet the demands which the economic life will impose on him … . What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?' (Readers' Digest, 1988, p. 379). The effects of 'Bantu education' are enduring and profound. Statistics show that in 1996 almost 25% of the adult African population had had no access to schooling, and only 3% had a higher education. This as compared to 1% of the white population with no education, and 25% with access to higher education (Census, 1996, Statistics South Africa). Just before the change in government in 1994, R1715 was spent on each black learner, R3691 on coloured children, R4687 on Indian learners, while R5403 was allocated per annum to the education of a white learner (DoE, 1995).

While quality education was therefore guaranteed for white learners, schools and curricula were often vehicles for transmitting racist ideology. Charles Villa-Vicencio notes:

Schools and tertiary institutions ought to have been invited, subpoenaed if necessary, to give account of discriminatory and racist behaviour, sometimes in reluctant obedience to the law, often with willing consent. The Bantu Education Act … ought to have been exposed for all to see. A major contribution of the TRC was to turn knowledge – which so many people knew – into public acknowledgement, allowing the nation to acknowledge evil for what it is. Asked to name the most significant achievements of the TRC in a national survey, the vast majority of South Africans, black and white, cited the disclosure of the truth about the past (2003, p. 15).

Similarly, current education minister, Naledi Pandor writes:

While evidence of several perpetrators in the hearings on other sectors has clearly outlined the methods of domination, control and destruction that were systematically utilized, the silence that has been permitted on education as a form of violation is, in my view, stunning in its intensity. (2000, p. 188)

Reflecting on what might have been heard at a TRC hearing on education, Pandor asks:

Would an expression of the apartheid education crimes have helped to lay the foundations for a process of redress that would directly challenge the residue of this policy? Would the voices of education victims have helped to create an understanding of why education became the enemy of many black people, of why black success in black schooling came to be seen as reactionary? Would senior academics have come before the TRC to confess their duplicity in producing mediocre books for black learning, in propping up apartheid's tertiary institutions that were designed to support the myth of black incompetence? Would those who burned down classrooms and schools have come forward to help us understand this particular crime against humanity? (2000, p. 187).

The answer to these questions could provide grounds on which to motivate for greater redress. As Pandor puts it: 'In my view, a realistic assessment of the truth of apartheid education could help us come to terms with the enormous challenges facing South Africa in reconstructing and transforming education' (2000, p. 190).

The TRC Report does acknowledge that education was a crucial mechanism in enabling apartheid: 'The policy of apartheid resulted in the delivery of inferior, inadequate education … . This deprivation constitutes a violation of human rights' (1998, p. 254). But there is little evidence from the TRC hearings for this conclusion. Malakalaka points out that the Commission used the terms 'schools' and 'education' interchangeably, with 'education' the preferred term in the Recommendations chapter (2002, unpublished, p. 12). This may be, as Malakalaka argues, because the Commission's recommendations addressed the need for broader educational transformation beyond schooling. The testimonies from the Children and Youth Hearings, however, rarely (if at all) questioned the education system's role as an ideological bedrock of apartheid. On the contrary, people often spoke with regret of having missed out on schooling.

Riefaat Hattas: 'We could not continue school like normal pupils. Our lives were destroyed. Some of us managed to complete matric under extremely difficult circumstances. Others could not take the pressure – they left school to later become drug addicts and gangsters … . Too many brilliant students never got a chance to reach their full potential as they were school drop-outs' (Chubb and van Dijk, 2001, p. 44).

Pretty Mkalipi, TRC hearing in Grahamstown, 8 April 1997, (assaulted by UDF Comrades) 'I was in standard seven. I went back to school when I was better, but I stopped, because when I am at school I get frequent headaches, I do not concentrate on what the teachers are saying at school' (Chubb and van Dijk, 2001, p. 87).

George Ndlozi, TRC hearing, Johannesburg, 12 June 1997 talking about Self Defense Units (SDUs), Katorus, East Rand from mid-1990-1994: 'hostel inmates and SDUs took potshots at each other across school yards. Children were not spared the horror. Schooling in the area came to a complete standstill. Children barely in their teens left schools to defend life and property' (Chubb and van Dijk, 2001, p. 89).

Without substantive detail on how education propped up apartheid ideology, the TRC is left with making fairly broad recommendations: 'to give more urgent attention to the transformation of education' (1998, p. 305). The vagueness of this statement is further blunted by the fact that the Department of Education was already undertaking substantial structural and policy change at the time. In addition, the TRC made no suggestions on curriculum content, how history (in particular the apartheid years) might be taught or how a human rights culture could be instilled in schools. There was, however, some change on a symbolic level, for example in renaming schools. Ahmed Timo's mother asked (on behalf of the community) that the school where he taught in Lenasia be renamed in memory of him and another school was renamed after Tiro, a Black Consciousness leader. Also, the TRC acknowledged the contribution made by the 1976 student uprisings (Ally interview, 11 October 2004).

Dr Faizel Randera comments that if the TRC had had a hearing on education, its recommendations may have put pressure on accelerating education transformation. He notes: 'Where we did have sector hearings, such as in health, we had much greater insight' (interview, 16 September 2004). Randera observes that because of time pressures, especially in its final days, the TRC did not build relations with 'the next institutional arm: the Land Commission, the Gender Commission, the Human Rights Commission. … The TRC didn't give enough time to making the recommendations "living documents"'. Randera comments too on the role that individual actors, or as he terms them 'champions', have had on seeing recommendations implemented. For example, after the close of the Commission. none of the commissioners took on positions where they could be of influence in seeing the recommendations (in education and other sectors) through. 'Recommendations in the best of societies often gather dust,' Randera explains (interview, 16 September 2004). This is particularly the case where recommendations are non-binding and have no legal effect. This is one of the reasons civil society pushes hard for stronger powers for truth commissions when they are created.

In 2004, the Department of Education made a call for 'Submissions on Apartheid Education'. Claire Dyer, of the Race and Values in Education Directorate, explains that the intention of this call was to document a historical record of education under apartheid as part of the '10 years of freedom' celebrations (interview, September 2004). A learners' camp at the Apartheid Museum was organized to coincide with Freedom Day 2004 and three of those who made submissions were invited onto a panel discussion. With the focus on information gathering only, this initiative has a far more limited ambition than the TRC's sectoral hearings. The call was to 'all South Africans whose lives were affected by the apartheid education system and its policies to come forward and tell their stories' (DoE, http://www.doe.gov.za, advert announcing the submissions). The 'perpetrators', those who gave credence to the system, the bureaucrats, teachers, the textbook writers etc. are left silent and it seems unlikely that the department will reflect on the submissions as a mandate for further steps towards redress. This campaign is mainly a symbolic gesture. The Department of Education is, however, currently involved with initiatives to address recommendations made by the TRC. Following an allocation by treasury, the department is conducting an audit of apartheid victims identified by the TRC process as having lost out on schooling in order that appropriate educational interventions can be made. In addition, the department is to produce a popular version of the TRC Report which will be distributed to schools.

The next section considers the extent to which reconciliation and redress have been achieved in education without the prompting of a TRC process.

Transforming education in the post-apartheid era

Policy formulation: 1994-1999

This section of the paper evaluates whether education transformation over the last 15 years broadly matched the tenor of the TRC process and its recommendations. The policies will be considered under three broad themes: reconciliation, restorative justice and human rights.

Reconciliation

For many, reconciliation as portrayed by the TRC, came to be synonymous with forgiveness. The public hearings were often a demonstration of the cathartic process of forgiveness, of victims coming to accept (and in instances, even embrace) the perpetrators of human rights violations. Tutu described forgiveness as important in giving 'people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them' (1999, p. 34). Reconciliation in this framework, therefore, required of people to overcome the desire for revenge, to respond magnanimously in order, finally, for healing to take place. This was arguably essential for South Africa to move from a splintered society into a unified state.

During the first period of educational transformation from 1994 to 1999, the Department of Education's focus was on dismantling apartheid's nineteen educational departments and setting up a unified structure based on an entirely new policy framework in line with the Constitutional values. Although previously-white schools were never called to truthfully account for their complicity with the apartheid ideology (truth was a precondition for reconciliation in the TRC), education policy formulation was ironically often reconciliatory in allaying the fears of white parents (Rensburg, 2001).

A good example of this is the process around which policy was established on the organisation, governance and funding of schooling. In the early 1990s, the apartheid government transferred ownership of the physical property of the former white schools (known at the time as Model C schools) to parents and granted them significant authority over the running of the schools. During the Hunter Committee's consultations, (a task team set up in 1995 by the Minister of Education to investigate options for school governance and financing), a powerful lobby group was these ex-Model C (former white) schools who argued that parents should retain governing authority over schools, including the right to charge fees. This position was further bolstered by two international consultants who reasoned that if schools were not allowed to raise additional funding through fees, quality in the former white schools would drop driving middle class parents to independent schools. Karlsson, McPherson and Pampallis explain that the consultants argued that 'In time this would deprive public schooling of its most influential advocates as business people, professionals, politicians, senior public servants and even teachers no longer depended on public schools for the education of their own children and grandchildren. This would be to the detriment of the entire public school system' (Karlsson et al, 2001, p. 158). The South African Schools Act eventually allowed for a decentralized education system that gave School Governing Bodies (democratically elected structures including parents, educators and, in secondary schools, learners) wide-ranging powers including, with the consent of a majority of parents, determining school fees which parents are compelled to pay. It was a decision that accommodated white parents, while at the same time extending ownership and control of schools to black communities (Fiske and Ladd, 2004, p. 64).

Language policy (the White Paper on Education and Training of 1995 and the South African Schools Act (SASA) of 1996) was also reconciliatory in attempting to balance the expectations of the previously disadvantaged with the fears of the previously advantaged. Following on Constitutional principles, education language policy provided for measures to promote African languages, while at the same time recognising language diversity and language choice (Mda, 2004, p. 179). Learners have a right to choose the language of teaching on admission to a school, and the provincial department of education must provide education in a particular language if there are at least 40 learners in Grades 1 to 6, or 35 in Grades 7 to 12, requesting the language (Mda, 2004, p. 180). School Governing Bodies are tasked with determining the language policy of the school in line with SASA regulations.

Mda notes that although policy subscribed to the notion that learning through home language is best, in practice English and Afrikaans still enjoy prestige. Furthermore, she writes: 'The fears of many English and Afrikaans-speaking parents about the future of their languages and the implications that integration and multilingualism in schools may have for their children, play a major role in the marginalisation of African languages and their use as languages of learning' (2004, p. 184). English is also perceived by many African-language speakers as offering greater socio-economic and educational opportunities (Mda, 2004, p. 184).

Restorative justice

To be meaningful, reconciliation for the TRC, had to be accompanied with redress (even if this was not commonly understood) so as not to position victims of apartheid as acquiescent or submissive and simultaneously to actively address the inequalities wrought through the past. Perpetrators too had to demonstrate that they were willing to take responsibility for their actions, if only by disclosing the full truth of their actions. Although the motto was reconciliation through truth, the idea of reconciliation was never simply about forgiveness devoid of redress or justice. Restorative justice is, however, arguably a weak form of redress in that it was not necessarily punitive though it did aim to restore wrong-doings of the past. Indeed, neither forgiveness nor atonement were obligatory components of the victim- perpetrator relationship. Richard Wilson (2001), for example, contends that in the climate of nation-building, the quest for rights-based social justice was subordinated by a compromised language of forgiveness. The normative demands of transitional institutions 'seemed to protect perpetrators more than they fulfilled victims' hopes for justice and reparation' (Wilson, 2001, p. xvii). Whether the redistributive measures in education policy have resulted in sufficiently redressing past inequities has been perhaps the most heated debate in education in recent years.

The idea of restorative justice is embedded in the key education policy documents, which explicitly aim to achieve equity and redress the inequalities of the past. The South African Schools Act (SASA) (No. 84 of 1996) provided for 'the funding of public schools on an equitable basis in order to ensure the proper exercise of the right of learners to education.' But while SASA allowed for the possibility of redress, it was not made obligatory and was vague on how to achieve it. The National Norms and Standards for School Funding (Government Gazette No. 19347) passed in October 1998, set in place mechanisms to distribute resources to schools on the basis of need. Each provincial education department is required to draw up a 'resource targeting list' informed by physical conditions and facilities, crowding of the school, and the relative poverty of the community served. This is collated into five categories of schools, or quintiles, from 'poorest' to 'least poor'. The formula apportions 60% of the provincial schooling budget to the poorest 40% of schools, while the least poor 20% will get 5% of the resources.

Redress measures appear to have had some effect. The national department's School Register of Needs 2000 shows that there were improvements in denting the backlogs in infrastructure from the first register in 1996. The learner-classroom ratio was 38:1 in 2000, down from 43:1 in 1996. Improvements had been made in the provision of sanitation, telephones, electricity and water supply. The proportion of schools without water, for example, dropped from 34.1% in 1996 to 27.3% in 2000. However, vast inequalities between schools and provinces remain. Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal continue to be the provinces most affected by backlogs.

Several analysts allege that education financing policies have had little impact, and in some instances have in fact increased the rift between previously disadvantaged and advantaged schools (see for example Porteus, 2002). Though redress is a clear intention in the Norms and Standards, it relates only to recurrent non-personnel costs, which represent on average just 7.8 percent of provincial education department budgets, with poorer provinces having the lowest levels. No similar redistributive mechanism exists for educator salaries, which make up the bulk of provincial education budgets. Personnel spending has actually privileged historically advantaged schools because educators at these schools tend to have higher qualifications and they offer curricular choices in special fields of study, such as agriculture and technology, which qualifies them for additional personnel (Porteus, 2002). The state has also been unable to redistribute assets that previously white schools accumulated under apartheid (Asmal and James, 2002).

In addition, wider government fiscal austerity measures have pressurized the education department to rationalise, cut costs and make savings. The Department of Finance has argued that by international standards, education spending is more than adequate. Redress, within this perspective, should be possible through savings made by closing down 'inefficiencies' in the system and capping subsidization of the more expensive parts of the system. Porteus argues, however, that 'in fact, the relatively privileged sector was not dismantled and was arguably too small to have effected systemic quality improvement though mere equalisation' (2002, p12). Also, the drive for efficiency has been framed within a managerial approach, for instance by saving money through eliminating mismanagement, rather than in improving educator performance, which would need more, not less, funding. Porteus contends that as a result investment in education is inadequate with extremely limited resources available for redress (Porteus, 2002).

But the most pressing argument relating to educational inequality has been with the decentralization of school funding, allowing School Governing Bodies (SGBs) to set school fees. The South African Schools Act obliges SGBs 'to take all reasonable measures within its means to supplement the resources provided by the State in order to improve the quality of education provided by the school' (DoE, 1998: Section 36, p. 49). The main source of fund-raising has been the charging of school fees. This has resulted in wide differentials between schools. The ex-Model C schools have generally been able to rely on middle-class families paying high fees, while previously disadvantaged schools struggle to collect very low fees. In an example of two schools, one charging R50 and the other R2500 per annum, Porteus demonstrates that even with the redistribution of public funds, the poor school can still expect to have less than half the budget of the more advantaged school (Porteus, 2002)

In a self-reflective assessment of the impact that financing policies have had on achieving equity within the system, the department published the Report to the Minister: Review of the financing, resourcing and costs of education in public schools (DoE, 2003). Using detailed statistical analysis, the review judges the department's policies as progressively 'pro-poor'. An estimated R300 million is transferred from non-poor to poor schools (DoE, 2003, p. 17). However, the Report notes with concern the inequitable distribution of resources across provinces, with the poorer provinces (Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal) spending less per capita on education than the wealthier provinces. This despite the fact that the poorer provinces spend a proportionately high percentage of their provincial budget on education. The Report recommends extending the pro-poor aspects of funding, redirecting more money from the forth and fifth quintiles to the poorer three quintiles (DoE, 2003).

Human Rights

Central to government's task of educational reconstruction has been an attempt to infuse human rights in its policy formulations. In the first instance, education was made universal and compulsory, in line with international conventions. Also, the South African Schools Act of 1996 (SASA) insists that education '… advance the democratic transformation of society, combat racism and sexism and all forms of unfair discrimination …' (Preamble to SASA, 1996) and that it lay the foundation for democratic governance.

Access to education appears to have improved greatly since the demise of apartheid. In 1991, approximately 10.1 million learners participated in public schooling in South Africa. In 1994 this grew to 11.5 million. In 1999 approximately 12 million learners were in the public school system, representing an annual average growth rate since 1991 of 2.8 percent (DoE, 2000b, p. 29).

The right to access education is strengthened with specific policies on access for learners infected with HIV/Aids and learners with special education needs. The national policy on HIV/Aids for learners and educators in public schools seeks to promote effective prevention and care within the public education system. It obliges schools and college communities to avoid discrimination against infected persons, spells out the rights and responsibilities of infected persons, and notes what assistance is available to infected persons. The Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education, released in 2001, proposes that learners with mild to moderate disabilities be mainstreamed into ordinary public schools. The policy is intended to reach the approximately 40 000 disabled children and youth of compulsory school-going age not accommodated in the education system.

There have been important developments, not only in ensuring that learners can access their right to education, but also in making South African schools safe places so that people do not feel threatened by violence against them, in one form or another. The TRC's Children and Youth hearings detailed the violence that imploded schools under apartheid. Much has been achieved in stablising schools in the last decade. The Campaign for the Culture of Learning, Teaching and Service (COLTS) was one such initiative launched in 1998. As its name implies, it aims to develop a culture of learning and teaching conducive to the delivery of quality education. Importantly, corporal punishment has been abolished, ensuring that learners are protected from cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

On a policy level, then, transformation in education was motivated by the same constitutionalism that bound the TRC's deliberations. Both the TRC and the education bureaucracy viewed themselves as tasked with envisaging the nation state based on human rights, even if they did not directly inform each other.

But the pace of change was arguably slow. Jonathan Jansen suggests that this was a result of an over-emphasis on policy production and 'political symbolism' without the necessary interventions to see those policies realized (2001, p. 47). Jansen writes:

The making of education policy in South Africa is best described as a struggle for the achievement of broad political symbolism that would mark the shift from apartheid to post-apartheid society. We search in vain for a logic in policy making connected to any serious intention to change the practice of education 'on the ground'. Therefore, a focus on the details of implementation will not be fruitful since it will miss the broader political intentions that underpin policy making after apartheid. Every single case of education policy making demonstrates, in different ways, the preoccupation of the state with settling policy struggles in the political domain rather than in the realm of practice (2001, p. 46).

The deficiency of strategies to deal with racism in schools, particularly in the previously whites only schools, demonstrates Jansen's point. Although learner migration patterns reveal that there has been a strong movement of African learners from the ex-Department of Education and Training (i.e. African) schools into formerly Indian, Coloured and white schools (Soudien, 2004), this has not necessarily resulted in multicultural or anti-racist schooling. The South African Human Rights Commission's (SAHRC) Report (1999) on racism in secondary schools demonstrated that discriminatory patterns still prevail at all levels of the schooling system. Alongside well-publicized incidents of overt racial conflict, such as at Vryburg High School, the study uncovered more elusive forms of racism. It found that the racialisation of education was carried through in policies such as 'high school fees, exclusionary language and admission policies, and other manoeuvres such as 'crowding out' black learners by bussing-in white learners from outside the feeder area' (Vally and Dalamba, 1999, p. 1). Desegregated schools tended to entrench an assimilationist approach to black learners entering the school with little effort made to accommodate the values and cultural histories of new learners or to deal with the discrimination and prejudice they experienced. Soudien writes: 'integration in education in South Africa can be argued to be a process of accommodation in which subordinate groups or elements of subordinate groups have been recruited or have promoted themselves into the hegemonic social, cultural and economic regime at the cost of subordinate ways of being, speaking and conducting their everyday lives' (2004, p. 112).

With the South African education system having been racially based for so many years before schools were desegregated, it is perhaps unsurprising that racist attitudes prevail. However, the SAHRC report notes that little has been done at national or provincial levels to develop school-based programmes to ease the tensions around desegregation or to help teachers cope with multi- racial/cultural/lingual/ability classrooms (Vally and Dalamba, 1999).

Similarly, gender issues have not translated from policy into practice. The Gender Equity Task Team's (GETT) 1997 report raised concerns about the pervasiveness of sexual inequity, harassment and violence in school and called for 'initiating legislation to lay the responsibility of maintaining a violent free environment at the doors of administrators' (Wolpe et al, 1997). GETT's wide-ranging recommendations to deal with gender equity were largely ignored by the department and three years after the publication of its report, a Human Rights Watch report titled, Scared at School – Sexual Violence Against Girls in South African Schools (2001), highlighted the continued violence perpetrated against schoolgirls. The Report is an indictment on the government's pledge to human rights. It remarks that girls regularly encounter violence in school, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and assault by male classmates and teachers. The report notes that although girls have better access to schools than their female counterparts in other sub-Saharan countries, the prevalence of sexual violence and harassment mitigates their access to education. Many of the girls interviewed in the compiling of the HRW report told of how their school performance dropped following assault. Others dropped out of school altogether.

The Human Rights Watch Report notes that although government has initiated measures to deal with violence against women through the criminal justice system, schools themselves are weak in coping with cases of sexual harassment and violence. Cases are often concealed, victims who report abuse talk of further victimisation and stigmatisation, schools rarely have strategies in place to create safe learning environments for girls and steps are seldom taken against perpetrators of sexual violence. Schools seem to prefer to deal with sexual abuse internally rather than calling in the police, prosecutors or social workers. As the report explains, 'many girls suffer the effects of sexual violence in silence, having learned submission is a survival skill' (HRW, 2001).

Along with racial and gender discrimination, the burden of poverty has dulled the promise of human rights in schools. The Speak Out on Poverty and Inequality Hearings, convened by the South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) in June 1998, provided concrete evidence that the inability to afford school fees and other costs such as uniforms, shoes, books, stationery and transport are some of the major obstacles blocking access to education. In some cases, parents, or even the pupils themselves, discontinue schooling as the costs of these items impose too heavy a burden on the family. Testimonies in these Hearings typically conveyed how many households scrapped together money from their meagre resources to send children to school. A number of people highlighted the shortage of schools within reasonable distance, as well as lack of transport. School fees remained unaffordable for many that testified (Vally, 1998).

Wilson (2001) has argued that the language of human rights adopted by the TRC was a formal, legal abstraction used by the bureaucratic elite to legitimize the state. Salim Vally similarly argues that the TRC, the Bill of Rights, as well as institutions such as the South African Human Rights Commission and the Commission for Gender Equality have 'provided a fairy tale façade often serving to disguise the often vicious nature of the society we live in' (2002, p. 6). Human rights are undermined by extreme poverty. Though policy intentions are lauded, the DoE has been hamstrung by inherited structural inequalities and budgetary constraints which dent its efforts to see policies implemented.

Stepping up on the social mandate of education: 1999-2004

If the early period of education policy formulation was the 'overtly ideological-political period' (Ihron Rensburg, 2001, p. 120), the second phase of education transformation (1999-2004), broadly coinciding with Kader Asmal's term as minister, concentrated on implementation. Minister Asmal stepped into office with a rousing Call to Action, under the slogan Tirisano which charted nine priorities on which to benchmark education progress.

Asmal's tenure is significant in terms of reconciling the aims of the TRC and educational transformation given his personal involvement in motivating for the establishment of the Commission. Asmal co-wrote a book (with Louise Asmal and Suresh Roberts) titled Reconciliation through Truth: A Reckoning of Apartheid's Criminal Governance (1996) which defended the uncovering of truth as a criteria for reconciliation. During his term as minister of education, Asmal initiated two ministerial committees concerned with the role of education in citizenship formation: the Values in Education Committee, chaired by Wilmot James¹¹ and, on the recommendation of this Committee, the History/Archeaology Panel, chaired by Njabulo Ndebele. This Panel was established to address, amongst others, the crisis within the study of the past and the kinds of knowledge with which history and archeology can enhance the lives and learning experiences of students. Both these committees had as their starting point the deliberate desire to break with the hang-over of apartheid and mould a new citizen able to navigate the democratic milieu. A report on the achievements of education since 1994 notes that from 1998:

The social mandate of schooling – providing an education that contributed to learners' personal and social development – and the need to strengthen community and civil society participation in schooling were pressing issues. Racism, violence and other manifestations of anti-social values were deeply rooted in our history and would not diminish without direct attention (DoE, May 2001, p. 6).

The valued citizen

Just as the TRC was winding down, the Department of Education was beginning to define the 'social mandate of schooling'. Naledi Pandor writes: 'I believe that one of the TRC's lessons for the new millennium is that a new set of values and norms can and must offer different outcomes through education. We should actively address the values and norms we convey in our schools in order to entrench a positive educational framework in South Africa' (2000, p. 190). But exactly what values and norms did the TRC subscribe to? Kai Horsthemke argues that because reconciliation is an ambiguous term, (in that it can have positive connotations such as forgiveness and acceptance, but can also be used in a negative sense of acquiescence or submission), it needs to be linked with a 'strong partner concept' if it intends to bring about substantial and long lasting changes (2004, p. 3). Two possible 'partner concepts' emerge from the TRC process: human rights and ubuntu.

Penny Enslin (2000) argues that the TRC offers a rich account for common political identity committed to constitutional democracy and human rights and therefore is an important starting point for citizenship education. She writes that although it is not possible to draw on the TRC to create a unified national myth around which citizens can commonly identify because it exposes our history as divisive in nature, it does nevertheless provide a focus for 'constitutional patriotism that Booth (1999) defends as an alternative to nationalism and the moral significance that nationalism attributes to the past' (2000, p. 88). Indeed, the emphasis on truth as a prerequisite for reconciliation and the TRC's investigation of gross human rights violations committed by those who opposed apartheid (as well as the state itself), detracts from myth-making that is normally attendant with nation-building. And this, she argues, is the TRC's strength. The teaching of myths contradicts the aims of democratic citizenship because it undermines the autonomy of those having to learn them (Enslin, 2000, p. 82). Instead, Enslin argues that the TRC provides 'important material for teaching the moral complexity and ambiguity of some actions in the struggle, discouraging unqualified adulation of the victors, with the potential to foster citizens' historical and moral imagination' (2000, p. 87). In contrast to nationalism which might require a shared history, constitutional patriotism draws citizens together, not on some attachment to ethnic or religious attributes, but on a common commitment to a democratic political order. Educating for citizenship would therefore require that learners develop competencies for democratic participation, as well as 'an informed appreciation of the past, particularly of the events recorded by the TRC' (Enslin, 2000, p. 89).

Enslin (2000) argues that the TRC also provides a model for democracy and democratic citizenship in its commitment for deliberation that was at once inclusive and attentive to difference. It is a model that schools can enact both in their operations and in teaching the communicative skills necessary in realizing democracy.

But if the TRC provides a fairly strong argument for human rights as a running partner for reconciliation, it simultaneously proffers the idea of ubuntu as a normative basis for nation-building. Archbishop Tutu, a champion of ubuntu, explains that it:

speaks of the very essence of being human … . We say 'a person is a person through other people'. It is not 'I think therefore I am'. It says rather: 'I am human because I belong'. I participate, I share. A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good; for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole (1999, p. 34).

The term 'ubuntu', used in this way, expresses individual solidarity within a community and therefore provides the TRC with a moral root to reconciliation and respect for human dignity. But while the choice of ubuntu as a 'partner concept' has popular appeal, it is not without dissenters. Wilson, for example, writes that ubuntu 'became the Africanist wrapping used to sell a reconciliatory version of human rights talk to black South Africans. Ubuntu belies the claim that human rights would have no culturalist or ethnic dimensions' (2001:13). Horsthemke argues that the term is too vague to stand as a regulative principle: 'It would appear that ubuntu may on occasion tell us what kinds of persons we should be but that it provides insufficient guidance as to what we should do, especially in cases of conflict (2001, p. 7, emphasis in the original).

Horsthemke furthermore distinguishes ubuntu from human rights, arguing that in fact the terms are in tension with each other. Individual rights may arguably be sacrificed for the community in the name of ubuntu (2001, p. 9). The TRC appears therefore to promote a confusing mix of individual human rights with the more communitarian value of ubuntu, offering two possible philosophical grounds as normative bases on which to resist the practices that hang over from apartheid. The TRC's map towards nation-building is thus not unambiguous. Claims to either the discourse of 'ubuntu' or 'human rights' as a basis for education are possible.

In its policies at least, the Department of Education draws on a human rights based approach, although there are strong elements of ubuntu concurrent in the documents. The White Paper 3 on Education and Training, for example, states:

The pursuit of national unity, the well-being of all South Africans and peace requires reconciliation between the people of South Africa and the reconstruction of society … . [The divisions and strife of the past] can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization (DoE, 1995, p. 3-4).

Similarly, the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) prescribes that students 'show responsibility toward the environment and health of others' and show awareness of the importance of, among other things, 'responsible citizenship' and 'cultural sensitivity' (Bulletin of the South African Qualifications Authority, May 1997). In addition, the Norms and Standards for Educators (DoE, 2000a) describes the ideal teacher as someone who is expected to play 'a community, citizenship and pastoral care role', to practice and promote 'a critical, committed and ethical attitude towards developing a sense of respect and responsibility towards others' and 'uphold the Constitution and promote democratic values and practice in schools and society' (DoE, 2000a, p. 13-14).

The Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy (DoE, 2001) is the department's most conscious and public articulation of what values education should promote in its learners. In July 2000, the Working Group on Values in Education, appointed by the Minister of Education Kadar Asmal, tabled its first report entitled Values, Education and Democracy (DoE, 2000). The report lists six values – equity, tolerance, multilingualism, openness, accountability and social honour – which were presented as 'a starting point in what ought to become a national debate on the appropriate values South Africa ought to embrace in its primary and secondary educational institutions' (DoE, 2000, p. 1). There was public debate on the values in the media and submissions were made to the Committee. The Committee appears to have taken seriously the criticisms leveled at it, particularly that the values favoured a moral approach over a rights based approach. At a national conference (over 400 delegates) dubbed the Saamtrek Conference, ten values were eventually arrived at: democracy, social justice and equity, equality, non-racism and non-sexism, ubuntu (human dignity), openness, accountability (responsibility), the rule of law, respect and reconciliation. These, as well as the strategies to see them implemented, became the basis of the Manifesto on Values in Education (DoE, 2001).

The Manifesto took values to be 'important for the personal, intellectual and emotional development of the individual. They are also influential in determining the quality of national character to which we as a people in a democracy aspire' (DoE, 2001, p. 8). It is acknowledged that these values are not present in the education system today. (See, for example, research done on behalf of the Department of Education which shows that many teachers and schools hold values different to those prescribed by the Manifesto (DoE, 2000)). The listed values are rather seen as forward looking and, as Constitutional Court Justice Kate O'Regan explains, the Manifesto 'compels transformation' (DoE 2001, p. 1). (See Box 1 below for the sixteen strategies to making the values operational).

The universal appeal of the values are particularly important given the daunting task of forging a common citizenship in the post-apartheid era. The intention is clearly in line with the post-colonial project: to sweep away the oppressions of a deeply segregated and tortured past and to build a compassionate and tolerant democracy. The values are essentially the buzz-words for a democratic and liberal society and are clearly drawn from the Constitution. In many respects, the Manifesto resonates with the ideals of the TRC. Equity is fore-grounded as the primary ingredient in transforming post-apartheid citizenship – to redress past injustice and so allow everyone equal rights and obligations flowing from the values without prejudice in terms of socio-economic standing. Under the values of non-racism and non-sexism, the Manifesto is conscious of the need to redress past imbalances: 'It is out of this value that the policies of affirmative action flow' (DoE, 2000, p. 15).

The value of reconciliation as expressed in the Manifesto is a virtual copy of the TRC's definition:

Reconciliation is impossible without the acknowledgement and understanding of [South Africa's] complex, difficult but rich history. The conditions of peace, of well-being and of unity – adhering to a common identity, a common notion of South-Africanness – flow naturally from the value of reconciliation. But, as the postscript of the Interim Constitution makes clear, they also stem from active engagement in the 'reconstruction of society', for, as President Mbeki has often said, there can be no reconciliation without transformation,' (DoE, 2001, p. 20).

In addition, ubuntu is included in the list, echoing Archbishop Desmond Tutu's definition (quoted earlier in this paper). Ubuntu includes 'practices of compassion, kindness, altruism and respect … it embodies the concept of mutual understanding and the active appreciation of the value of human difference' (DoE, 2001, p. 16).

BOX 1: Sixteen strategies for making the values operational: Nurturing a culture of communication and participation in schools Role Modelling: Promoting commitment as well as competence among educators Ensuring that every South African is able to read, write, count and think Infusing the classroom with a culture of human rights Making arts and culture part of the curriculum Putting history back into the curriculum Introducing religion education into schools Making multilingualism happen Using sport to shape social bonds and nurture nation building at schools Freeing the potential of girls as well as boys Dealing with HIV/Aids and nurturing a culture of sexual and social responsibility Making schools safe to learn and teach in and ensuring the rule of law Ethics and the environment Nurturing the new patriotism, or affirming our common citizenship (Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy, DoE, 2001)

Curriculum change

The TRC presents two important concepts with epistemological relevance for evaluating the curriculum: reconciliation and truth. Reconciliation sets the agenda for how knowledge is organized or framed in the curriculum and truth claims are at the heart of what counts as knowledge. The TRC Report recommended that human rights be included in the formal education curriculum, if reconciliation was to have long-term success (1998, p. 2).

An immediate task for the post-1994 Department of Education was the creation of a new curriculum, rid of the racist and sexist content and rote-learning methodology that characterized its predecessor. The choice of curriculum, Curriculum 2005 (C2005) as it came to be known, was founded on Outcomes-Based Education (OBE), an integrated knowledge system and learner-centred pedagogy (Harley and Wedekind, 2004, p. 195). It was an ambitious project that threw out content loaded syllabi for outcomes-based statements related to the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that learners had to demonstrate at each phase. C2005 carried the aspirations of the new political dispensation. Harley and Wedekind argue that 'C2005 displayed an unusually overt political agenda' (2004, p. 198), announcing clearly its intentions for the new schooling system. The Minister of Education's foreword in early promotional material states: 'It will foster learning which encompasses a culture of human rights, multilingualism and multi-culturalism and a sensitivity to the values of reconciliation and nation building' (quoted in Harley and Wedekind, 2004). In its objective then C2005 echoes the TRC's agenda.

Yet despite its announced break with apartheid syllabi, the multi-culturalism of C2005 carried over remnants of apartheid ideology which saw South Africa made up of a diversity of static 'cultures' and 'communities'. Cultural groups were still viewed as exclusive entities with distinctive practices that now demanded equitable pedagogical attention (Kros, forthcoming, p. 16). In other words, reconciliation was demonstrated through a minimal multi-culturalism, with dominant Western cultural content now sharing space with previously silenced traditions.

Human rights also tended to be viewed as an 'add-on' in the curriculum. Keet explains that it was 'either seen as a body of knowledge that needed to find expression in pockets within designated areas or as ad hoc principles that could be addressed in different knowledge areas' (2002, p. 30). The core knowledge and specific skills related to disciplines were therefore kept in tact. Keet notes that this followed international practice with multi-cultural curriculums which were at first 'tentative and assimilationist' (Keet, 2002, p. 30). Moreover, the interpretation of human rights was left open, sanitized and fragmented so that it could be correlated with a spectrum of political and ideological thinking (Keet, 2002, p. 34).

Another doubt expressed was that OBE relied on learners having a social capital that was mainly picked-up from a middle-class environment. Black learners have to 'navigate their way through the competing ontologies and epistemologies of a white and middle-class world and an African and often working-class township or rural location. The process of installing OBE thus talks past the ideological and cognitive tensions which permeate their everyday lives' (Baxen & Soudien, 1999, p. 138-139). Curriculum 2005 also slipped into reacting to globalising market pressures dominated by human capital theory, which sees education as serving the economy rather than vice versa. The emphasis on vocational skills in outcome statements was evidence of this. This may have been in line with developments in macro-economic policy towards GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution), which was at pains to drive South Africa into competitive global markets.

These characteristics may have been as a result of C2005's origination at a time of political compromise in the context of globalisation. As Chisholm explains:

In a wider context of national reconciliation based on historic compromise achieved between old and new ruling elites, the curriculum represented a compromise between old and new forces. New values to which all could subscribe were articulated, the social content of the curriculum was underplayed, and its design and development decentralised. While there were new elements in the curriculum, there were also continuities with curriculum policy proposals made by the pre-1994 national Department of Education in its 1992 Curriculum Model for a New South Africa. (2003, p. 272)

At the same time, unlike the TRC, a process firmly grounded in historical analysis,¹² C2005 was a product germinated in the immediacy of its time within a global curriculum reform phenomenon. OBE was imported, and adapted, from countries such as Australia and New Zealand, but was never part of the discourse of curriculum reform processes in South Africa, notably the National Education Policy Initiative (NEPI), just prior to the first democratic elections. Harley and Wedekind write: 'The new curriculum did not emerge from debates within the education sector about the most appropriate forms of pedagogy to bring about the new political vision, or about what was feasible in the profoundly diverse and unequal range of schools. In the parlance of curriculum studies, C2005 did not arise from a 'situation analysis' of existing realities' (2004, p. 199).

But the biggest obstacle to implementing C2005 was with its complex terminology, curriculum overload and inadequate teacher preparededness. It was an over-ambitious cart put before a malfunctioning schooling system. The curriculum was reputedly resource hungry and the cascade model of teacher training on the curriculum was notably inadequate. As Kros explains: 'although its structural design was impressively elaborate, it made the mistake of many education reforms before it, including, ironically, so called Bantu Education, which had been formulated by leading Afrikaans academics, in believing that centralized, vocationally directed curricula could act as powerful agents for social and economic transformation, even under adverse circumstances' (Kros, 2000, p. n/a).

Faced with resounding unhappiness with the way in which Curriculum 2005 was being implemented, Kader Asmal established a review committee in May 2000, chaired by Professor Linda Chisholm. The review was not a departmental retraction of C2005. The committee was not asked to question the curriculum itself or its underlying assumptions, but rather to improve and simplify the documents to ease implementation. Nevertheless, when the review committee completed its work in May 2002, the Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R – 9 (RNCS) affirmed that the curriculum should elevate an awareness of the relationship between social justice, human rights, a healthy environment and inclusivity (Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R – 9 (Schools) Policy, 2002). As Chisholm explains: 'Instead of reasserting the dominant human capital theory and school effectiveness approaches with which education was being cast, the [Review Committee] report consciously promoted and reaffirmed the less dominant social goals of social justice, equity and development' (2003, p. 277).

Human rights was therefore more vigourously infused into learning programmes to include social, economic and environmental justice, inclusivity and HIV/Aids. The National Forum on Democracy and Human Rights Education, set up in 1997, had already been lobbying for a much more integrated approach to human rights education beyond the parameters of civic education learning areas (Keet, 2002), and this was highlighted in the recommendations of the Review Committee Report (2000) which asked that: 'Human Rights education and education for civic responsibility should be infused through all learning areas. Issues of anti-discrimination, anti-racism, anti-sexism and special needs require particular and enhanced attention throughout the curriculum.'

While the curriculum for General Education and Training (GET, grades 1-9) had already been reviewed, the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for grades 10 to 12 came up for its first public viewing in October 2002.¹³ The NCS is a clear break from past curriculum and assessment practices. It continues with the outcomes-based education of the lower grades and has similar principles: social transformation, human rights, inclusivity, environmental and social justice, valuing indigenous knowledge systems, high knowledge, high skills, integration and applied competence, progression, articulation, portability, quality and efficiency (Zafar, 2002).

As with other policy instruments, the implementation of the RNCS faces the challenge of execution. Keet notes that although a working group on human rights and inclusivity for the development of the curriculum process was established, it was sidelined in the writing of learning programme guidelines (2002). Because of the contested nature of human rights definitions, the possibility remains that it could be subverted by conservative agendas and therefore requires on-going educator support as well as the development of relevant and accessible learning materials (Keet, 2002), concerns the NCS does take into account.

Curriculum statements have generally progressed from early efforts to rid the content of racist and sexist material to a multi-cultural curriculum and, after the Review Committee, to a much more substantial human rights approach. Educators across subject areas need to be teaching with human rights in mind and encouraging democratic citizenship. They also need to adopt a more learner-centred approach in the classroom, encouraging dialogue and group work and so modeling democratic processes. These social goals are most palpable in the teaching of history and since the TRC is both a source of information on the apartheid period, as well as a topic of history in its own right, this paper turns to a closer investigation of the history curriculum.

Truth and reconciliation in the history curriculum

Truth and reconciliation are both vexed problems in the teaching of history. The historical 'truths' of apartheid were repudiated for their subjective alignment with Euro-centric history, racist ideology and the white nationalist government. But history is generally recognized (in academic circles), through the selection of facts and their interpretation, as being written from discernable perspectives (Kros, 2002). How would the new curriculum approach history without replacing one orthodoxy for another? Furthermore, how would educators teaching the brutalities of the apartheid past (when they themselves and their learners come from homes where apartheid is still a living memory) deal practically with the requirements of reconciliation? These are questions of common concern in post-conflict societies and the teaching of history is an important, though sometimes treacherous, avenue to reconciliation.

Perhaps it was these difficulties that saw history and geography merged into a single learning area: Human and Social Studies (HSS), in the 1997 version of Curriculum 2005. Chisholm argues that integrating history in this way was in effect a form of amnesia, an attempt to create distance from an all too painful past (2004). Kros suggests that: '[HSS] put the lid on History in case, like an unforgiving victim coming face to face with an amnesty-seeking perpetrator in the course of the Truth and Reconciliation process, it released an uncontrollable anger and blood – either literal or metaphorical – was spilled' (2000, p. n/a). Partly as a consequence of these concerns, the RNCS restored history as a subject in its own right, with a separate set of outcomes and assessment criteria.¹⁴

That history should be a distinctive subject was a recommendation made by the History and Archeology Panel chaired by Professor Njabulo Ndebele. The Report of the History/Archeology Panel reflects on a crisis in the study of history, resulting from the disappearance of history as a distinctive subject area, the numbers of history educators declared redundant as a consequence and some schools setting history as a subject for less able learners. That the study of history should have been in a crisis, the report suggests, is ironic. After years of rote-learning history as an ideological tool justifying apartheid, the democratic era had not seized the opportunity to rediscover history. This process was 'especially urgent' given that 'we are living in a country which is currently attempting to remake itself in time,' for the study of history 'helps to prevent amnesia, checks triumphalism, opposes the manipulative or instrumental use of the past, and provides an educational buffer against the 'dumbing down' of our citizens.' (DoE, 2000c, p. 6)

The Panel also attests to the role history plays in nation-building, specifically defined around civic responsibility (DoE, 2000c, p. 6). In its recommendations, the Panel warns against 'exclusivist, 'multi-ethnic' history', insisting rather that learners gain broader knowledge of 'all people of South Africa, as the basis on which to forge a sense of a shared human past' (DoE, 2000c, p. 13). Furthermore, South African history should be told as a history not just of race, 'but a complex chemistry of colour, class and gender' (DoE, 2000c, p. 13). Although the past, therefore, is presented as divisive, its divisiveness is common to all South Africans and the current identity to civic nationalism is the glue that holds the post-authoritarian state together. Indeed, as the panel's report puts it:

In a country like South Africa, which has a fractured national memory, the development of common historical memories of such fundamental processes as migration or poverty or political change can play an integrative role in our culture and polity. Attending to the complex legacy of memory can also help to foster shared understanding of one of the deepest imaginative functions of history, which is to show that through the historical medium of time, the movement of continuity, change and conflict, or action and reaction, no one can avoid confronting the costs and pain which history brings to the surface (DoE, 2000c, p. 7).

The RNCS for history similarly links the violations of, and struggle for, human rights with the present democratic dispensation. It is in understanding the underlying constructs that legitimated apartheid brutality (racism, sexism and ethnicity) that learners come to internalize new values which guard against a repeat of history. Typically in grade 9, learners need to be taught to 'deal with continuing issues of racism, class, gender and xenophobia in South Africa and how lessons from the past can help us confront these issues' (DoE, 2002). In grade 6, educators need to 'ensure that the process of constructing knowledge from sources and evidence is shown in the values of the Constitution' (DoE, 2002)

Both the Panel and the RNCS explicitly draw on a human rights discourse and, related to this, the skills learners need to develop in order to participate in a democracy. According to the Panel: 'Part of the value of history is the substantive role it can play in fostering sensitive values of anti-racism, non-sexism, and a general respect for human rights. In addition, good history teaching is important in promoting the values of tolerance' (DoE, 2000c, p. 7). The history curriculum is littered with references to human rights and to human rights conventions; in grade 4: 'Stories from the past about human rights' violations (e.g. stories about children like Hector Peterson); grade 6: Children's rights in the Bill of Rights; grade 8: The Constitution, local government and elected leaders. The Revised National Curriculum Statement explicitly states that

history will be taught in a way that will include the experiences of ordinary people, rural and urban workers, and of women as well as men, and it will specifically address human rights issues such as prejudice, persecution, oppression, exploitation, sexism and racism, xenophobia, genocide and other forms of discrimination. (Chisholm, 2004, p. 185)

Along with values, the history curriculum and the Panel emphasize critical thinking as a skill developed through the study of history. They oppose rote-learning and content-driven curriculum. The Review Committee on Curriculum 2005 focuses on source interpretation and on how knowledge of the past is constructed. This may be an attempt to avert criticism on content choices (Chisholm, 2004, p. 185). Whether critical reflection is possible in the study of the recent past is a point of debate. Michelle Friedman, history textbook writer, argues that contemporary history (the 1990's) is too politicized and that teachers are unable to dissociate from the events to offer an unemotional critique of them (interview, November 2004). Furthermore, without the advantage of hindsight, or of a critical perspective, the inclusion of recent history tends to shore up the dominant state position, for example with the inclusion of NEPAD (the New Partnership for Africa's Development). Chisholm notes that: 'Even though the new history curriculum for Grade R (Reception Year) to 9 was written in conscious awareness of these issues [of selection and omission], there is no doubt that it is very much a product of its time and context, of the social struggles around it and the people who ultimately produced it' (2004, p. 181).

The difficulties of teaching apartheid history, of resurrecting past racial injustice, should not be under-estimated. There is anecdotal indication of anger flaring up amongst black learners and tense stand-offs between black and white learners in history classes (interview, Kros, November 2004). Some educators prefer using apartheid-era textbooks with their bland descriptions and where no-one is cast as a villain, perhaps as a way of side-stepping potential racial discord (interview, Kros, November 2004). But the sidestepping of these issues has consequences of their own. For example, in CSVR research with young people in schools, a consequence of not examining the past is that students internalize the status quo as natural (a result of hard work and good luck) (cf. Makhalemele and Molewa, forthcoming). The challenge for history educators is to use historical narrative to uncover how racial identity is constructed and to break a dichotomy that tars all whites as bad and all blacks as good. Kros suggests that the individual testimonies gathered by the TRC present opportunities for educators to introduce the complexities and ambiguities of apartheid racial categories, for example by including stories of black collaborators and white liberation fighters (interview, Kros, November 2004).

The TRC itself is a topic studied in grade 9. The grade 9 curriculum statement includes a detailed exposition on apartheid and resistance to apartheid as well as 'South Africa in the 1990s: negotiations leading to the 1994 elections, South Africa's Constitution, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Land Claims Court and land restitution' (Draft National Curriculum Statement). Since the grade 9 curriculum comes into effect in 2008, textbooks are still in development. There are however good examples of how to approach teaching the TRC. Every step of the way is a South African history text commissioned by the previous minister, Kader Asmal, and has a chapter on the TRC which includes the complexities and debates around the establishment and outcomes of the Commission (Kros, interview, November 2004). Various museums, including Constitutional Hill and the District Six Museum, offer space and exhibitions on the TRC. The Apartheid Museum had a temporary exhibition in late 2004 titled 'Shattering the Silence' created with the backing of the Khulumani Support Group for victims of political violence. The exhibition used body maps, visually representing physical and emotional abuse experienced under apartheid and links with the international court case against businesses that benefited under apartheid. The Gauteng Institute for Curriculum Development (GICD) has developed materials that locate South Africa within the international context and compares the TRC with the Nuremburg Trials. Michelle Friedman has recently produced a workbook for the Grade 9 Common Task Assessment to be published by Juta. It compares the TRC with the Australian experience using the movie The Rabbit-proof Fence, the 1996 Report on Stolen Children and Sorry Day, which was an attempt to reconcile the population to the abuses meted out on the Aboriginal people (interview, November 2004).

Andre du Toit (2004) offers a number of guiding themes in appraising the TRC as contemporary history, which could be fruitfully used by educators. First, the number of relevant contexts to the TRC needs investigation. Second, the TRC should be compared with alternative approaches to democratic transitions from authoritarian rule. Third, the nature of the TRC process should be related to its eventual product. Fourth, some of the major conceptual and institutional innovations could be looked at including vicitms' hearings, individual amnesty conditional on full disclosure and perpetrator findings. Fifth, the stages in the TRC process and the shifts in meaning and objectives of truth and reconciliation should be tracked. Sixth, a historiographical and critical review of the TRC Report is needed. Finally, an assessment of the TRC should look at the difficulties with closure and the extended amnesty hearings (du Toit, 2004, p. 69-79).

In its collection of historical data, the TRC offers educators both an approach to historical analysis as well as content for lessons on apartheid. As Tutu's foreword to the TRC report asserts: 'we believe we have provided enough of the truth about our past for there to be a consensus about it. There is consensus that atrocious things were done on all sides' (TRC, 1998, Vol. 1, Ch. 1). Du Toit notes that the TRC turned living memory into a reconstituted, representational history (2004, p. 68). Once memory passes into documented history, it becomes a representation of the past, open to interpretation. Yet, documenting and making public history the traumas experienced by those still living, can prevent these memories from 'festering out of public sight as political grievances' (2004, p. 68). Also the new constitutional order of human rights remains 'an abstraction if it cannot be linked in meaningful ways to the living memories of victims and perpetrators (du Toit, 2002, p. 67). In the emphasis on human rights values and the importance of historical reflection on the character of the democratic state, the history curriculum mirrors the aims of the TRC.

Colin Bundy (2000) argues, however, that there are two main difficulties with the TRC's writing of official history between 1 March 1960 and 10 May 1994 (the mandated timeframe addressed by the Commission). First, while the TRC recognized the subjectivity of the past, and acknowledged other kinds of truth besides 'factual or forensic truth', the report adopts a conventionally positivist approach to its historical judgements (2000, p. 14). The presentation of the past as an objective account is a result of the TRC's desire to fulfill its mandate for 'the establishment of as complete a picture as possible' of the past that is legitimate and credible. Second, Bundy argues that the Report fails to make the explanatory link between the many individual stories of human rights violations with the more quantitative overview that was to serve as shared history. As a result of this dissociation, it is difficult to understand 'why individuals behaved as they did' (Bundy, 2000, p. 14).

Although the curriculum offers fairly broad content descriptors, it does address both Bundy's concerns with the TRC report in its emphasis on the importance of historical interpretation and in its approach to presenting concepts underlying power. For example, grade 9 educators are asked to 'ensure that learners understand the dynamic nature of culture, heritage and identity and how culture and identity can be used as tools of exclusion and oppression (eg. Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, ongoing conflicts such as in the Middle East) (DoE, 2002). Moreover, in its approach to the historical endeavour, the curriculum arguably goes beyond the TRC's positivist presentation of its findings. For example, the topic areas in the Further Education and Training band (FET, grades 10-12) are given as questions that require investigation.

Whether the theory of the curriculum will be practically demonstrated in the classroom depends on two important mediating factors: teachers and textbooks. As the Panel on History and Archaeology acknowledges, with exceptions, the teaching of history is generally poor nationally and many teachers still rely on apartheid-era textbooks 'with barely a glimmer of consciousness that there is anything flawed about such materials' (DoE, 2000, p. 8). Educators will need to 'unlearn' years of teacher training and classroom practice before they can confidently test new pedagogical methods. In addition, educators will need to acquaint themselves with new content areas.

Further development of educators is included in the RNCS's operational plan, but until they have a grasp of the new methods and content of the history curriculum, many will continue to rely on textbooks. The Panel on History and Archaeology highlights the urgent need to improve the quality and availability of learning support materials. An audit of history textbooks by Cynthia Kros of the History Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand (2002) notes that there are some good textbooks available that make clear their historiographical and values framework, encourage critical thinking skills and avoid simplistic one-dimensional accounts. However, these texts are in a minority and there are systemic difficulties in accessing them, particularly in rural schools. The audit found that textbooks, even the good examples, were used with old-style, authoritative teaching methodologies that stuck closely to the text and encouraged rote-learning. Furthermore, some educators felt uncomfortable with or unwilling to use new textbooks that denigrated white historical figures while introducing black personalities. As Duncan Hindle puts it: 'Having to think in radically different ways about a Smuts or a Malan can be traumatic to teachers who have been accustomed to see the past in terms of the purportedly fine deeds of white men only' (2004, p. 191).

The audit found that some popular apartheid era texts were still widely used and being reprinted and repackaged as OBE compliant (for example, Active History and Timelines). In Active History passive voice dominates, white men are seen as central history makers and there is very little attention paid to historical interpretive skills. The evaluators described the Active History series as 'purveyors of disgusting propaganda' (Kros, 2002, p. 28).

The History Panel's report includes findings from a provisional survey of texts by the Khayelitsha History Teachers' Network. Since many of these texts will still be used, it is worth quoting selections of these findings at length:

• Good features found in the new textbooks included: 'a comparison of the past and the present; some attention to oral tradition; recognition that knowledge is not fixed; probing of issues of racism and questions of conflict and tension; presentation of challenging learning activities to both teacher and student'

• Discomforting features of both old and newer textbooks included: 'universally male-dominated narratives; narrowness of vision and a failure to grasp the breadth of history to open up meaningful broader themes; excessive emphasis on discrimination against black people, with black societies not portrayed as making history, but largely as real victims of history made by powerful whites; insufficient attention to more contemporary historical issues; neglect of the importance of rural experiences and those of workers; little coverage of South African black nationalist and other leadership created by the excluded majority population' (DoE, 2000, p. 12).

Michelle Friedman argues that one difficulty with textbooks is that publishers are wary of being critical in case the books are not accepted by the Department of Education's textbook submissions panel, 'which is loaded with political representatives' (interview, Johannesburg, November 2004).

Moreover, Friedman remarks that textbooks alone are insufficient if issues are to be dealt with in any depth. Textbooks are written to very strict page limits and can only provide bare facts, rather than nuance. Textbooks need to be complemented, Friedman suggests, with topic books where issues are presented with more depth (interview, Johannesburg, November 2004). There have been a number of initiatives to supplement learning resources, including once-off newspaper pull-outs as well as book publications and internet resources. Leading the development of resources, is the South African History Project (SAHP), launched in August 2001 to promote and enhance the quality of learning and teaching of history in schools and higher education institutions (Bam, 2004). Two publications promoted by SAHP, UNESCO's updated General History of Africa and Turning Points in South African History, a series of essays written by academics and presented in glossy book format, are to be distributed to schools. Both Kros and Friedman note that the UNESCO publication is not user friendly and that the debates are at university level, making it inaccessible to school-level teaching (interview, November 2004). Kros critiques the Turning Points in South African History for assuming that there are identifiable events or periods that were 'turning points', rather than seeing the past as an on-going debate. She says care needs to be taken 'not to replace one orthodoxy with another' (interview, November 2004). The launch of the South African History OnLine website provides extensive resources (including information drawn from the TRC Report) and teaching ideas (www.saho.org). However, as the Panel on History and Archaeology points out, internet resources can be tapped into by very few educators, and may as a consequence exacerbate the inequitable resource allocation between privileged and disadvantaged schools (DoE, 2000).

The TRC as a model for 'peace' education

There are two positions on the pedagogical value of the TRC in the curriculum: one optimistic, the other skeptical.

In the optimistic school, Penny Enslin argues that the TRC offers a model of 'peace education', in that the process meets Gabi Salomon's four outcomes of peace education: Firstly, a willingness to accept the narrative provided by the other as well as its implications; secondly, empathy is achieved; thirdly, a willingness to acknowledge the culpability of the state; lastly, a determination to see the conflict and the actions of its various participants in relativistic rather than absolute terms.

However, although the TRC process itself had a powerful impact on peace education during the span of its hearings, Enslin notes that 'the likely future impact of the TRC is less clear' (2000, p. 5). 'For learners in schools, many of the issues raised by the TRC are morally very complex, and an effective peace education programme in schools would also need strong emphasis on civic competence and life skills in general' (2000, p. 5). Because many schools are dysfunctional, Enslin thinks less formal initiatives at peace education would probably be more successful.

On whether the TRC model of peace education is applicable to other societies, Enslin writes:

But distinctive of South Africa's TRC was its context – that of a negotiated transition to democracy, reflecting the need for a profound change in the prevailing power relations. For other divided societies contemplating possible lessons of this TRC, it could be observed that such a model of peace education is not transferable in the absence of similar major changes in the power relations between diverse groups in conflict with one another. (2000, p. 5)

In the skeptical school, Crain Soudien argues that the TRC is 'somewhat deficient' as a pedagogical model for teaching peace (2000, p. 2). He offers two reasons for this conclusion. First, the way in which the TRC defined the parameters of apartheid, or in educational speak, the way in which it 'framed' the lesson of apartheid, was too narrow. For Soudien, apartheid was not put on trial, its 'heinous henchmen' were. He writes:

[in South Africa] in the absence of a rigorous understanding of how power works as a social force in its deployment of popular consent, its incorporation of the person in the street into stratagems of domination and its insidious access to the media through which processes of demonization and othering are accomplished, the process of building peace is inevitably subsumed within the limited political discourse of the day. (2000, p. 3)

In its search for deviance, the TRC failed to address the impact of apartheid on the majority of people. 'Framed as the TRC is, in its limited address, it offers, therefore, a compromised lesson for how peace might be transacted' (2000, p. 4).

Second, the process of the TRC as the mid-wife of a new dispensation, defined justice in a restorative rather than retributive way. As a result, tension arises between the TRC's role in historical truth finding and in the requirements for reconciliation. Soudien argues: 'in the TRC process, there is what one might mildly refer to as a conceptual confusion in how one proceeds from the reading of evidence to the assessment of the degree of remorse or contrition manifest in a perpetrator' (2000, p. 6). The concepts of 'justice', 'confession' and, indeed, 'truth' are constructs of the TRC process that go against accepted conventions of what these terms mean. 'The content [the TRC] provides for the learner insufficiently explains how one moves from the particular forms of confession to the particular forms of absolution which are dispensed. In between lurks a mystery – the miracle of the new South Africa – viewers and participants are expected to accept on faith' (2000, p. 6). Learners are therefore presented with a version of history in which the actors are stereotyped and which they are invited to tolerate (2000, p. 6).

Conclusion

The conceptual links between the TRC and the institutional transformation of education are sometimes more easily drawn than at others. Both the TRC and education had their birth prescribed by the Constitutional imperatives of a negotiated settlement founded on reconciliation. Both were consciously aware of their roles in nation building and promote the discourse of human rights muddled in with the language of ubuntu. But perhaps, education was slower, more tentative than the TRC imperatives, in its transformation. Although big leaps were taken in policy documents to break from the past, to redress funding and create a culture of human rights, these were often slow in implementation. Education transformation was framed by budgetary limitations which set conditions on the possibilities for redress. The promises of policy were constrained in implementation by lack of resources and capacity. And sometimes there were contradictions in the policy itself. Curriculum 2005, for example, displayed a minimal multi-culturalism while at the same time radically shifting methodological practices.

With the appointment of Kader Asmal as Minister of Education in 1999, and with the bulk of policy written, education appears more in sync with the TRC's notion of restorative redress and discourse on human rights. Headway has been made on defining more clearly the values of citizenship in education, reflecting the TRC's nation-building programme. The curriculum has been revised to more forcefully promote a human rights agenda and history has itself been restored as a distinctive subject, to act as a vehicle for reconciliation.

However, it is important not to take the comparison too far. The TRC's intention was to uncover the historical truth behind human rights violations in order for reconciliation to take place. The transformation of education, on the other hand, was driven largely by Constitutional imperatives with neither individual nor systemic acknowledgement of education's complicity in apartheid's human rights violations providing the basis for reconciliation. A TRC into education may well have provided pointed reminders for fast- tracking transformation.

Notes:

¹ This introduction updates the proposal Consolidating Citizenship and Reconciliation in the Post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission Period submitted to the Ford Foundation (2000).

² Perpetrators of political violence had to fully disclose details of their past crimes in order to qualify for amnesty. Simply put, it was agreed that justice would be overlooked provided that the perpetrators publicly told the truth. The truth, it was hoped, would help the process of healing individual victims and the nation.

³ Theissen, G. (1997). Between Acknowledgement and Ignorance: How white South Africans have dealt with the apartheid past. Research report based on a CSVR-public opinion survey conducted in March 1996. Braamfontein: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

⁴ Dewhirst, P. & Valji, N. (2003, April) Little joy, no rainbow, victimized again. City Press.

⁵ Oakley-Smith, T. (2003, May). Editorial, The Star.

⁶ This study reflects on policy related to schooling, leaving out adult basic education (ABET), early childhood development, further education and training and higher education.

⁷ The National Education Crisis Committee's (NECC) National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) process wrote up policy proposals between December 1990 to August 1992.

⁸ The final two volumes of the TRC Report were published in 2003.

⁹ Although healing and a sense of closure was the experience of certain victims, research conducted by the CSVR shows that the process was not homogenously positive. For many who went before the Commission, questions remained unanswered, thereby frustrating their quest for knowledge and truth. Many others felt betrayed and marginalized, as perpetrators received amnesty while they received little, if any reparation. Also the process of telling their stories retraumatized some – hardly leading to healing. 'Healing' through the TRC is perhaps better understood as occurring at a national, rather than community or individual, level (cf. http://www.csvr.org.za/research.htm for various publications on the topic).

¹⁰ Institutional hearings were held for business and labour, the religious community, the legal community, the health sector, the media and prisons. Special hearings covered compulsory military service, children and youth, and women.

¹¹ Just how important Asmal's individual motivation was behind the formation of the Values Committee is noted in the Manifesto, where he writes that 'the idea of a document on values, education and democracy started, as these things can happen, as a passage conversation' (DoE, 2001, pii).

¹² Although it is important to note that the TRC was itself developed in relation to a then fairly nascent international body of thought and knowledge, commonly known as the field of 'transitional justice'. Once it had been established, the South African TRC – for various reasons – then went on to become a 'model' for other states exploring their own transition to democracy and so it is important to acknowledge that the 'truth commission' idea is also time-bound and set within a global context.

¹³ Until the curriculum is implemented, much of the apartheid syllabi and assessment practices (most importantly matric exams), continue. This is particularly problematic with history, which remains generally Euro-centric.

¹⁴ Both geography and history are still collectively called Social Studies, but geography is taught for half the year and history for half the year.

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