Is history a school subject in crisis? New research shows it isn’t, at least not yet

Grafissimo/Getty Images History educators around the world have expressed concerns about the decline of history enrolments in schools and universities over the past few decades.

In some countries, such as the United Kingdom and United States , some experts and commentators have even gone as far to describe it as a subject “in crisis”.

History educators are concerned that if fewer young people study history, they will miss out on important knowledge that helps them understand the present.

They’re also worried students will have fewer opportunities to develop critical thinking and communication skills.

So what do senior history enrolments look like in Australian high schools? And is it a cause for concern? Our research , published in the Journal of Curriculum studies, suggests educators shouldn’t jump to the “crisis” conclusion, at least for the time being.

A gradual downward trend In our research, we tracked the number of students studying history at the Year 12 level across all states and territories from 2009 to 2024.

Our study focused on Year 12 enrolments in modern and ancient history, as these are the two main subjects for history in the Australian Curriculum and across most states.

We found enrolments in history overall have not kept pace with the growth of Year 12 populations.

This has led to the gradual decline in senior secondary history enrolments.

This means there are fewer students continuing to study history in Year 12 than ever before.

A potential ‘crisis’ This drop in popularity appears more significant when we look at the trend over a longer period.

A 2003 report indicated Year 12 participation in history in 1993 was around 21%, dropping to about 18% by 2001.

We estimate that by 2024, the proportion of overall year 12 students enrolled in ancient or modern history was down to 14.7%.

It’s important to note there are limitations with calculating the proportion of Year 12 students studying history over time.