The participation in this colloquium by the highest-level government attests to the seriousness we attach to the provision of high quality education through our cultural and scientific heritage.

It is encouraging to note that senior officials from my Ministry are actively participating in the colloquium in the presentation of policy statements on curriculum initiatives and on the challenge of facing Heritage Education. The extension of invitations to officials from provincial departments of education to attend this colloquium is a further concrete move by the Prrogramme to involve the education system. This will go a long way in mobilizing the role-players’ involvement in the dissemination of historical knowledge.

You might already be aware that the Ministry of Education launched the “Values in Education Initiative” in 2000. The report released in April 2000. The report released in April 2000 noted the importance of the value of teaching history and the creative nurturing of historical consciousness. It concluded, “the teaching of history is central to the promotion of human values, including that of tolerance” [1] . A History and Archaeology Panel was appointed to advise me on how best to strengthen the teaching of history in South Africa’s schools. The Ministry gave serious thought to the recommendations of the History and Archaeology Panel, particularly the one with regard to the establishment of a History Commission.

I am therefore glad to note that heritage institutions are working with us as champions of history of the past. As noted in the History and Archaeology Report (November 2000) “good history, put to good use… has a particular fortifying role in the growth of human culture.”

On 27 August last year the South African History Project was launched at the Old Fort. It consisted of eminent historians, history teachers, an archaeologist and teacher development practitioners. The project seeks to promote the study of history and find ways to advance a greater understanding and appreciation of new histories in a democratic South Africa.

In this regard we are currently preparing for the first Inaugural History Teachers’ Conference to be held in the first half of this year. Not only does this conference recognize teachers as champions of the subject, it also recognizes the role of other public institutions. Other participants will include museums, heritage workers, publishers, members of the media, academic and NGO’s. Our strategic approach in strengthening the teaching of history through the inclusion of all role-players will go a step further in allowing for the citizens participation in the development of the history curriculum for the Further Education and Training level.

We believe that the Heritage Sector’s institutions of public culture are key actors in the education of the nation. We are also aware that the Heritage Sector in this country has been over-represented by museums. There is no doubt that museums (as we know them today) are a social construct of western society. Museums came to the development of the world as part of the arsenal for the social reproduction of the colonial ideology. In this vein the indigenous cultures became items of curiosity that separated the so called civilized from primitive societies. Museums have indeed been instruments of division and mid-education in South Africa. There is no doubt that institutions of public culture are instruments of civil society and that they play a critical role in the shaping of public opinions and identities within the nation and the global public sphere. In South Africa institutions of public cultural have been responsible for providing arenas in which people define, debate and contest their identities and produce and reproduce their living circumstances, their beliefs and values and ultimately their social order. Heritage institutions as apart of the civil society are the crucible in which citizenship is forged and as such Heritage institutions cannot be ignored in the making of the new South African society. Heritage institutions educate, refine and reproduce social commitments beyond those in ordinary education and civil institutions.

Heritage institutions provide a stage on which values are asserted and contested, discovered, central or peripheral, essential or marginal to identity, they have become sites of contestation. [2]

The Ministry of Education’s initiatives on values in education and the South African History Project are some of the new innovations that will contribute to the imaginative teaching and the exhibitions that will promote and accommodate diversity in society. The efforts of the South African National Cultural Heritage Training and Technology Programme through human resource development in the use of digital technologies is but one of the innovative ways of confronting the challenges in Education and the Heritage sector. Indeed SANCHP provides an inspiring example of how an organ of civil society can augment the state’s initiatives to transform society.

We applaud the great strides that the South African Cultural Heritage Training and Technology Programme has made in the development of a collaborative network of new professionals in the Heritage Sector. We are aware of the short supply of midlevel managers with technology skills, which you tackled through the Summer Institute, in 2000 at East Lansing that involved 24 South Africans. We have also noted the previous two workshops in Durban and Cape Town and further planned collaborative projects. We wish the partnership between South Africa and the USA well.

Partnerships between societies at different levels in their development tend to be one sided with the advanced and more resourced partners becoming dominant. We trust that the values of partnership enunciated in the Project Proposal that the Ministry of Education supported will continue to guide your current and future efforts. Partnerships at different levels of our society are crucial to closing the digital divide.

There is no doubt that information technologies are contributing to the emergent digital divide. Technology has become a means of imposing new hierarchies on society between the haves and have-nots. Digital technologies are contributing to new social ideas and values that challenge the way the past can be presented. The transfer of technologies has privileged the western countries and hence in structuring new dependencies. The new initiatives in the Ministry of Education aim at creating a democratic society where ‘South Africa shall be a proud and equal member of the community of nations’. The new information technologies provide the interconnectivity required for the globalization of commerce. While they cannot be ignored one needs to be aware of their potential for eroding national identity. This is critical in the Heritage and Education sectors where we are responsible for nation building.

South Africa should not allow itself to construct national repositories of knowledge that are determined by outside necessities. We hope that Conference might not only consider what heritage education ought to be but will also look at how museums, historical sites and even archives relate to the changing shape of the communities that surround them. While the colloquium may feel challenged to focus on such issues as collecting, preservation, studying, interpreting, and exhibiting, it is more challenging to begin to think of how can museums relate to other institutions and communities.

Museums can be partners with the Ministry of Education with teachers, parents, and with students. Museums can also play a leading role in providing resources to make history a living and relevant subject. Through web-technologies museums can present material in an effective and relevant manner.

Our national curriculum for the Human and Social Sciences makes adequate provision for the integration of heritage, values and history. It recognizes the importance of oral history and the oral tradition as well as the preservation of knowledge about our heritage. There are key components of the curriculum. The inclusion of the oral tradition as part of our indigenous knowledge system provides a firm basis upon which to kick-start the process of decolonising the mind.

Information technology is an important vehicle for the dissemination of and for the promotion of the values enshrined in our Constitution. Schools should therefore be equipped with the necessary resources to facilitate cultural heritage training and technology programmes. We have made enormous strides in the education system regarding information technology and we are committed to continue the good work. The South African History Project has the challenging task of building on this proud tradition.

I wish you well for this important conference, which should assist in the process to bridge the gap between heritage, values and education.

I thank you.