Staff Reporter
The Department of Basic Education late on Thursday called for public comment on the draft history curriculum for Grades 4 to 12.
Earlier in the day, renowned education academic Jonathan Jansen blasted the proposed Africa-centred overhaul as “anti-intellectual and soul-deadening”.
In an interview with News24, Jansen also questioned why authorities had taken three decades to decide the curriculum should be Africa-centred.
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He said the shift could “undermine education standards”.
News24 reported that the draft would move away from topics such as the US civil rights movement and the French Revolution as anchor themes in favour of more African-centred content.
In a statement, the department said the documents now in the public domain were still drafts and that the process was meant to allow “structured public participation before any decision is taken on a final curriculum instrument”.
It said public submissions would help shape any further refinement of the proposed curriculum.
The department rejected criticism that parts of South African or world history could be sidelined, saying, “the public comment process is the appropriate mechanism” for those concerns to be raised “in a detailed and constructive manner”.
It added that oral history was included to “broaden the evidentiary base and recover perspectives that were previously marginalised”, while written sources and the colonial and apartheid archive, “read critically”, remained important repositories of history.
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The draft says the proposed “a new African-centred curriculum for 21st-century South Africa” that aims to build “global historical consciousness from the vantage point of Africa”. It says the curriculum draws on oral, archaeological, written, visual, linguistic and landscape sources and is influenced by UNESCO’s General History of Africa project.
The existing Grade 12 history curriculum includes the US Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr, while the draft Further Education and Training phase introduces a Grade 11 topic titled “Slavery, Slave Resistance and the Haitian Revolution” and treats the French Revolution mainly as background and comparison.
The department said the review had been underway for several years, and that a ministerial task team started working on it in 2019.
Provincial consultations were held in all nine provinces in 2023 and 2024, and the draft was later presented to Parliament’s portfolio committee, internal departmental structures, HEDCOM and the Council of Education Ministers before publication for public comment.
The gazetted notice says submissions are open for 30 days from publication.
The department said it urged educators, universities, professional bodies, heritage institutions, civil society groups, parents, and the public to study the draft closely and submit “focused, evidence-based comments”.
“Persons are invited to submit comments clearly marked for the specific CAPS document and page number,” said the department.
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It said comments should be submitted to:
The Director-General, for the attention of Florence Modipa, Chief Education Specialist: Curriculum Policy, Department of Basic Education, 222 Struben Street, Pretoria, 0001.
Or to the Director-General, for the attention of Florence Modipa, Department of Basic Education, Private Bag X895, Pretoria, 0001.
Or by email to modipa.f@dbe.gov.za.
The draft documents and comment template can be accessed via the department’s website at: https://www.education.gov.za/ArchivedDocuments/ArchivedArticles/CallforcommentsHistoryCaps.aspx
