MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez Threatens to Nationalize Private Schools

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, after nationalizing oil, electricity and telecommunications this year, said private schools that fail to teach a ''socialist'' curriculum will be taken over by the state.

Schools will have to stop using text books that teach "lies" about the European conquest of Latin America, Chavez said today at a ceremony to inaugurate the school year. "We can't just allow private schools to do whatever they want," Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television from the city of El Tigre. ''The state has to intervene. They should be subordinate to the constitution and the national education plan.'' The president is campaigning ahead of a national referendum expected in December on his proposal to rewrite the country's constitution that would eliminate presidential term limits and redefine certain types of private property, among other measures designed to solidify the country's transformation into a socialist state. The president said he will use surplus revenue this year to build more "Bolivarian" schools, named after 19th century revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar. The president's opponents accuse him of aiming to indoctrinate young Venezuelans with socialist ideology. But the education minister said the aim is to develop "critical thinking," not to impose a single way of thought.