Under the Bolivarian government, the Venezuelan Ministry of Education proposed an educational curriculum that would help establish a socialist country. On 14 May 1999, the President Hugo Chávez approved lists of books for schools to educate young citizens on socialist ideology. The "Revolutionary Curriculum" was to feature material on theorist Karl Marx, revolutionary Che Guevara, and liberator Simón Bolívar. According to Venezuela's culture ministry, the compulsory book list is being designed to help schoolchildren eliminate "capitalist thinking" and better understand the ideas and values "necessary to build a socialist country."