Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Chavez visita Via quaranta

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlZe4o4lkXaSLi3iaFzG7MTpow7w
 Chavez Threatens to Take Over Schools
By SANDRA SIERRA - 6 hours ago
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday
to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight
of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose
leftist ideology in the classroom.
All Venezuelan schools, both public and private, must submit to state
inspectors enforcing the new educational system. Those that refuse
will be closed and nationalized, Chavez said.
A new curriculum will be phased in during this school year, and new
textbooks are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," added
Chavez's brother and education minister Adan Chavez in their televised
ceremony on the first day of classes.
Just what the curriculum will include and how it will be applied to
all Venezuelan schools and universities remains unclear.
But one college-level syllabus obtained by The Associated Press shows
some premedical students already have a recommended reading list
including Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and Fidel Castro's speeches,
alongside traditional subjects like biology and chemistry.
The syllabus also includes quotations from Chavez and urges students
to learn about slain revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Colombian
rebel chief Manuel Marulanda, whose leftist guerrillas are considered
a terrorist group by Colombia, the U.S. and European Union.
Venezuelan officials defend the program at the Latin American Medical
School - one in a handful of state-run colleges and universities that
emphasize socialist ideology - as the new direction of Venezuelan
higher education.
"We must train socially minded people to help the community, and
that's why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented,"
said Zulay Campos, a member of a Bolivarian State Academic Commission
that evaluates compliance with academic guidelines.
"If they attack us because we're indoctrinating, well yes, we're doing
it, because those capitalist ideas that our young people have - and
that have done so much damage to our people - must be eliminated,"
Campos said.
Now some critics worry that primary and secondary schoolchildren will
be indoctrinated as well.
Chavez's efforts to spread ideology throughout society is "typical of
communist regimes at the beginning" in Russia, China and Cuba - and is
aimed at "imposing a sole, singular vision," sociologist Antonio Cova
said.
But Adan Chavez said the goal is to develop "critical thinking," not
to impose a single philosophy.
More than eight years after President Chavez was first elected, the
curriculum at most Venezuelan schools remains largely unchanged,
particularly in private schools commonly attended by middle- and upper-
class children.
Anticipating criticism, Chavez noted that a state role in regulating
education is internationally accepted in countries from Germany to the
United States.
Chavez said all schools in Venezuela must comply with the "new
Bolivarian educational system," named after South American liberation
leader Simon Bolivar and Chavez's socialist movement.
Discussing the new curriculum, he said it would help students develop
values of "cooperation and solidarity" while learning critical
reflection, dialogue and volunteer work.
Previous Venezuelan educational systems carried their own ideology,
Chavez said. Leafing through old texts from the 1970s during his
speech, he pointed out how they referred to Venezuela's "discovery" by
Europeans.
"They taught us to admire Christopher Columbus and Superman," Chavez
said.
Education based on capitalist ideology has corrupted children's
values, he said. "We want to create our own ideology collectively -
creative, diverse." Chavez said Venezuelans - not Cubans as opponents
suggest - have been drawing up the new curriculum, but added that
Venezuela could always accept Cuban help in the future.
Venezuela has more than 160 universities and colleges, most of which
maintain their independence. Leftist ideology is already part of the
curriculum at seven different state universities. But encouraging
students nationwide to read up on Guevara, Castro and Friedrich
Engels' speech before Marx's tomb would be something new entirely.
About 20 of the 400 foreign pre-med students have dropped out of the
Latin American Medical School near Caracas. Among them was Gabriel
Gomez Guerrero, 22, of Colombia, who was shocked that the syllabus
counts Marulanda among "important Latin American thinkers" to be
studied. The head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is his
government's public enemy No. 1.
"They aren't going to introduce that man to me as a 'Latin American
thinker,'" Gomez said. "They may brainwash other people, but not me."
School director Sandra Moreno said nobody is being brainwashed - the
idea is simply to provide a foundation in Latin American affairs. And
Ana Montenegro, a program coordinator who helped create the syllabus,
said it was a mistake to describe Marulanda that way, but that the
course program will continue to evolve and improve.
Many of the remaining students describe themselves as socialists and
say no one is pressuring them.
"They don't impose what we have to learn," said Roberto Leal, a 30-
year-old Brazilian. "If we don't agree with something, we express our
opinion."
Associated Press writers Ian James in Caracas and Joshua Goodman in
Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

ceremony on the first day of classes.
Azzo.... Sempre piu' simili al fascismo di Mussolini.
-Stefano