/ 21 August 2001

CRIMINALS IN THE MAKING?

PRIMARY school children in South Africa are being offered a class project that requires them to plan and “execute” an armed robbery, the Sunday Argus newspaper reported. The newspaper said the teaching module, on offer to schools throughout South Africa, was the brainchild of SkoolCor, a Cape Town publishing company. The teaching aid, titled “Guilty or Not Guilty”, requires pupils to take part in a learning exercise in which they choose their weapon, plan a getaway route, choose a getaway vehicle with two machine-guns, and draw up a plan of the building they intend to rob. National education ministry representative Molatwane Likhethe described the exercise as morally wrong because it taught children that violence was “okay”.- AFP