South Africa has opened a formal public comment process on a proposed new history curriculum that could reshape how learners are taught about the country, the continent and the wider world. In a Government Gazette notice dated 20 March 2026, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube called for comments on draft new History Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements for Grades 4-6, Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12. The deadline for submissions is 20 April 2026.
The development matters because this is not a minor classroom tweak. The Department of Basic Education has published full draft CAPS documents across the schooling system, from the intermediate phase through to matric, and the documents point to a broader reworking of what school history should do. In the text reviewed, the draft frames History as an African-centred discipline that should build historical thinking, historical consciousness, archaeology-based understanding and oral-history skills, rather than relying narrowly on inherited textbook narratives.
Government has published draft policy statements and invited public comment. This is part of a consultation process, and no new history curriculum is in force yet.
What we know so far
The official trigger is clear. The gazetted notice says the minister is calling for comments from stakeholder bodies and members of the public on the draft new History CAPS for Grades 4-6, Grades 7-9 and Grades 10-12. It also says the schedules are available on the department’s website under CAPS documents, and that comments must clearly identify the specific CAPS document and page number being addressed.
The department has already uploaded the draft documents on its website under a dedicated call-for-comments page. That page links to the gazette notice, the amended draft CAPS for the three grade bands, and a public comment template. This is important because it shows the reform is no longer an abstract idea. The full draft texts are now in the public domain for scrutiny.
This consultation also appears to be part of a longer reform path rather than a sudden announcement. In its 2025/26 Annual Performance Plan, the DBE set an annual target for a revised History CAPS for Grades 4-12 to be submitted to Umalusi for appraisal. The same document says the revised curriculum is intended to foster social understanding and cohesion.
Why it matters
What stands out most in the draft is its declared philosophy. The Grades 10-12 document says this is “a new African-centred curriculum for 21st-century South Africa” that pays particular attention to the long past, seeks to reconstruct African histories through multiple methodologies, and aims to develop global historical consciousness from the vantage point of Africa. It also says the approach is influenced by UNESCO’s General History of Africa and is part of a broader decolonisation of knowledge.
That framing matters because it goes beyond adding a few new case studies. The draft argues for a different way of approaching the past, one that treats African history as central, knowable and globally connected. It explicitly says the curriculum is not meant to be a narrowly patriotic history, which is an important distinction in a country where curriculum debates can quickly become politicised.
The documents also place much stronger emphasis on archaeology and oral history than many readers may expect from a school syllabus. The draft says archaeology is essential because it helps examine periods before written records and encourages appreciation of Africa’s long and rich history, including early innovation, trade and connections to other regions. It says oral history should help recover silenced voices, including the experiences of communities with few written records, while still treating written archives critically rather than dismissing them.
For readers, that means the current debate is not only about which events or leaders should appear in textbooks. It is also about what counts as historical evidence, whose voices are recognised, and whether school history should place more emphasis on historical enquiry, memory, interpretation and African-centred knowledge production.
Key details and figures
The draft documents show that the proposed changes reach across all major school phases. In Grades 4-6, History remains within the Social Sciences time allocation, where the draft says History receives about 15 hours per 10-week term, alongside Geography. The Grade 4 term-one topic is “Personal history”, built around the key question “Who am I?”, while Grade 6 opens with “Evidence for an ancient African past”, asking what archaeology is, how archaeologists work and what material evidence can reveal about life thousands of years ago.
The Grades 7-9 draft continues that structure but pushes learners toward broader historical connectedness. One of the examples used in the document asks how African societies on the western coastal region and semi-interior responded when European merchant traders arrived between the late 1400s and 1650. The text says this phase is meant to show the inter-connectedness between the national, continental and global.
In Grades 10-12, the draft becomes more explicitly conceptual and contested. The Grade 10 section includes “Societies of the Wider World” and asks how ideas of “civilisation” changed over time. The examples include Egypt and the Mughal Empire, and the draft explicitly asks why later scholarship argued that African, Indian or South American civilisations were inferior to Western civilisation. It also proposes debate and source-analysis exercises around questions such as whether Egypt should be considered part of Africa.
The Grade 12 draft also signals how politically charged some themes could become. One example key question asks whether South Africa has attained political freedom while economic inequalities have remained unchanged and the struggle continues for economic freedom. That does not mean the curriculum dictates a single answer. It does show that the draft is willing to place contested democratic-era questions directly into the classroom.
What happens next
The immediate next step is the public consultation. The gazetted notice says comments close on 20 April 2026, and the DBE has provided both the draft documents and a template for responses. After that, the reform process is likely to move back into the formal policy and quality-assurance track, including scrutiny by Umalusi before any final implementation step.
South Africa has not yet adopted a final new history curriculum, but it has entered a serious and public phase of curriculum reform. The official documents show that the proposed rewrite is substantial, African-centred in orientation, and more explicit about archaeology, oral history, historical consciousness and contested interpretations of the past than the current public debate headline alone suggests.
