Can History become Compulsory?

South Africa in the middle of a History curriculum review. The Department of Basic Education has published draft new History CAPS documents for Grades 4 to 12 for public comment, with comments closing on 19 April 2026. The Department has stressed that these are still draft curriculum documents and that public submissions will help shape any final version. 

This has revived an old question: Can History now become compulsory for the National Senior Certificate?

Our view is that this remains highly unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future.

An overcrowded Matric.

The first reason is simple: the NSC is already crowded. To obtain the NSC, a learner must take seven subjects: two official languages, Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy, Life Orientation, and then three elective subjects. In other words, the matric curriculum already has a fixed structure, and the four compulsory subjects are already defined in policy and regulations. You cannot simply “add” another compulsory subject without redesigning the whole curriculum or removing something else. 

This matters because South African schooling already struggles with curriculum overload. Too many subjects, each with heavy content demands, that often means too little time for genuine mastery. By contrast, systems such as Cambridge International AS and A Level generally allow learners to specialise in fewer subjects, with no compulsory subject structure (although you may need to meet local university entrance or further study criteria) and with students typically taking fewer than seven subjects. 

So if History were to become compulsory in Grades 10 to 12, something would almost certainly have to give. The obvious candidate is Life Orientation. That is not speculation. The old History Ministerial Task Team expressly proposed that if History became compulsory in the FET phase, it would replace Life Orientation as a fundamental subject. 

'Junking' Life Orientation.

But here the proposal runs into political and practical trouble. In the April 2025 parliamentary briefing, one of the DBE’s own summaries noted that Life Orientation is regarded as an important subject that cannot simply be removed. That is a major obstacle. It suggests that even within government there is no easy consensus on displacing LO to make room for compulsory History. 

Then there is the staffing problem. The same Task Team report warned that History cannot be made compulsory without serious funding and teacher development, and that one cannot assume that any qualified teacher can teach History satisfactorily. The report also discussed the pipeline of History teacher training and showed that the numbers are limited. Even if government wanted compulsory History, it would need time to train and place enough teachers. 

And that immediately raises another awkward question: what happens to the existing cohort of LO teachers if LO is downgraded or removed in FET? Retrain them? Reassign them? Absorb them elsewhere? These are not small administrative details. They are the kinds of system-level issues that can stall reform for years.

Political Will and capacity.

There is also the political question. Yes, compulsory History has been a project associated with earlier administrations. The DBE has continued the review process and has briefed Parliament on implementation work. But moving from a curriculum review to a full restructuring of the NSC is a much bigger step. It would require political energy, bureaucratic capacity, teacher preparation, materials, assessment redesign, and a willingness to absorb the consequences for other subjects and for pass-rate politics. Showing an ever increasing matric pass rate is an important political objective that few administration would like to risk departing from.  

At present, the signs point more clearly to a new History syllabus than to a compulsory matric History regime. 

That does not mean change is impossible. It is quite conceivable that History could be strengthened or more easily integrated from Grade 4 to Grade 9, although even there the overload concern remains. But making it compulsory at NSC level is a different matter entirely.

Solved - Walk away from CAPS

So, can History become compulsory for matric? In theory, yes. In practice, Probably not.

For families concerned either about workload or about content battles inside CAPS, this debate is a useful reminder of something broader: state curricula are determined by the state. If you want more flexibility, more depth, or a different educational philosophy, it may be time to think seriously about educational pathways other than CAPS.