Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, has threatened to nationalize any educational institution that does not adopt his socialist government’s new curriculum.

“All of the schools in the nation must apply this curriculum,” Mr. Chávez said this week during his regular call-in show, Hello, President. “Any school which does not comply — to be nationalized! Any university which does not comply — to be nationalized!”

Mr. Chávez also said that if the director of any “educational center … is very stubborn and resists — he goes to jail, and that’s it! That’s the law.”

Mr. Chávez has said that the nation’s educational system should promote socialist, anticapitalist values and that a new curriculum would replace “colonial, Eurocentric ideological education.” That curriculum was supposed to be instituted in elementary and secondary schools last month, but its details have not yet been released.

The public-university system is one of the last government institutions still dominated by opponents of Mr. Chávez. —Mike Ceaser

Update (10/8): The Venezuelan government has not made any moves yet to introduce a similar curriculum at the univeristy level.