info@sasht.co.za
The proposed updated CAPS History curriculum is currently available for public comment for 30 days. All relevant stakeholders should take the opportunity to engage with the document and share their feedback by 19 APRIL 2026.
We believe in empowering teachers through professional development and resources to enhance their teaching practices.
We facilitate networking among history educators, academics, historians, and students to foster a rich learning environment.
We promote socially relevant history education that connects with the South African context and ensures inclusive citizenship.
We offer opportunities for professional development that provide history teachers with the tools they need to deliver engaging and relevant content.
We run monthly webinars aimed at providing both support and extension to those involved in History education.
Join us each year for our conference, where educators and scholars share their research and best practices in history education.
Our journal, Yesterday and Today, provides a platform for scholarly articles on history education in South Africa.
We work with teachers and government entities to engage on curriculum reforms in South Africa.
Collaborate with us to create learning materials and teaching resources that support innovative history teaching.
Chairperson
Lerato Monguni is Head of History at McAuley House School. She is an award-winning history teacher, a Jakes Gerwel Fellowship Former Alumni, Executive for the Professional Learning Community portfolio, and a Teachers Change Agent Network (CAN) Alumni Fellow.
Lerato has also published research on using music as a teaching resource when teaching apartheid in the history classroom and presented research on bringing the voices of women in the armed struggle in the classroom. Lerato believes in the use of project-based learning in the classroom. This is seen in how she has introduced indigenous games and mystery boxes as a way of teaching the history of Southern Africa in 1750s. Her research was published in Yesterday & Today.
Lerato strongly believes in teaching learners problem-solving skills, as these skills will allow learners to identify problems in their community and establish solutions to these problems.
The role of president of SASHT means having access to more resources to build a community of History teachers and academics, where knowledge sharing shifts from academic research papers to being implemented as classroom history lessons. The teaching space requires collaboration, and Lerato hopes to see more pre-service teachers, current teachers in the classroom, and academics coming together to share knowledge, as this allows for a constant bridge of learning, which is crucial in the education space.
Deputy Chairperson
Paul Maluleka is an Associate Professor of History of Education at the University of South Africa. He is also a Co-Director of the African Association for History Education (AHE-Afrika), Deputy President of the South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT), and Editorial Board Member of Yesterday and Today Journal for History Education in South Africa and abroad. His research, teaching, and activism centre on Africanisation, decolonisation, and queer theorisations in both higher and basic education, with a particular focus on post-apartheid school history in South Africa. He leads a major National Research Foundation–funded project examining how best the post-apartheid school history curriculum in South Africa can be queered.
Treasurer
Raymond Nkwenti Fru is an Associate Professor in History Teaching and Head of the Department of Human Science Teaching at Sol Plaatje University. As Treasurer of SASHT, he manages the organisation’s finances, including budgeting, record-keeping, regulatory compliance, and banking. He submits regular financial reports to the Executive Committee and advises on
long-term financial sustainability and strategic resource use, helping the Society promote history education, support professional development, and remain financially secure.
Webinar Co-ordinator
Phumza Precious Mbele is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State. She is also a Lecturer in the Department of Languages and Social Sciences at the University of Zululand, where she teaches Social Sciences Education with a particular focus on History Education.
She holds the portfolio of Webinar Co-ordinator, and is an active member of the South African Society for Education (SASE).
Her doctoral research explores the stories of historically significant yet silenced women in the Afromontane region, pursued through a local history project that seeks to foreground inclusive historical narratives and address gaps in representation within the history education curriculum.
She is a UK–USDP grant recipient through the collaborative partnership between the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). Through this programme, she continues to grow as an international scholar committed to advancing the representation of women, promoting historical significance, and enriching the field of History Education.
IT Manager
Kirstin Kukard is the Head of History at Herzlia High School. She holds two Master´s Degrees in Education. The first, from the University of Cape Town, focused on Curriculum Studies. She was the recipient of a Commonwealth Scholarship for her second Master´s in the History of Education from
The Institute of Education, University College London. She is passionate about History education and helping teachers to grow in their understanding of teaching both the historical discipline and the ethical implications of the history curriculum.
Kirstin´s role in SASHT is to manage the website and help to improve communication from SASHT.
Social Media Manager
Michael Stack is a lecturer at the University of the Free State where he provides didactic training to pre-service Social Sciences - Intermediate Phase and History FET phase teachers. His primary research area is ICT and AI in Education. He is serving a second term on the SASHT Executive Committee and serves as a social media co-ordinator, managing the Facebook page. He aims to grow the society's social media footprint as part of the IT team. When he is not training history teachers, he plays historical strategy games and peruses historical fiction.
Editor, Yesterday and Today journal
Johan Wassermann is a Professor of History Education and the Head of the Department of Humanities Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria. He is the editor-in-chief of Yesterday & Today, and the current chairperson of the Historical Association of South Africa (HASA). He is an NRF C1-rated researcher focusing on history textbooks in Africa, teaching controversial issues in Africa, history education, youth, and the history of minorities, and minoritised in colonial southern Africa. He has published extensively in national and international journals and serves on several editorial boards.
Resources Manager
For Gill Sutton, the study and teaching of history is a passion, a joy and a delight. She has been teaching history for more than thirty years in a range of institutions, both Independent and State schools, as well as two years in tertiary institutions. She has a keen interest in archaeology and how archaeology in southern Africa helps us to make sense of our long past. At present, she is developing online materials and supporting educators for an educational institution. She has benefitted from being a member of SASHT for many years. Her current role on the SASHT exec is to assist with resource development.
Academic Liason
Francois Cleophas is a history researcher focusing on education and sport in marginalized communities in the Western Cape, South Africa. Sport history is a neglected field of study in South Africa and he hopes to attract university students to SASHT through his extensive publication work and direct recruitment.
Academic Liason
Sarah is a senior lecturer in History Education at the Wits School of Education in Johannesburg. Here she trains future history teachers in both the Bachelor's of Education and PGCE programmes.
She got her PhD in History in 2015, and
PGDipHE in 2020. She conducts research on decoloniality and history education,
and looks at the realities of translating education theory into practical history
classrooms. She is one of the academic liaison team on the SASHT exec, working to keep the lines of communication between what happens in school classrooms and in
teacher training programmes open.
Secretary
Fikile Sithole is the Secretary General of the South African Society for History Teaching (SASHT). As a dedicated History teacher, Fikile is passionate about shaping the future of History education at both school and university levels. Currently pursuing a PhD in History Education at Rhodes University, Fikile's research focuses on decolonizing the History curriculum, indigenization, and compulsion.