How the dates are checked

The checks

1. Each official page or Gazette is saved as it was read, with a fingerprint (checksum) of the file, so any later change shows up.
2. Every term date, day count and holiday is copied from that saved copy and tied to it.
3. Weekdays are calculated from the dates, never copied. For every term two counts are made. First, the weekdays from the first to the last school day: this must equal the Gazette’s “No. of days” (and, counting the bracketed days for administration, its bracketed figure). Second, those weekdays minus the public holidays and special school holidays inside the term that the Gazette knew of: this must equal the Gazette’s “Actual no. of school days”. Example: Term 2 of 2026 has 58 weekdays and, after four days off, 54 school days, the same figures the Gazette prints. A public holiday declared after the Gazette (described below) is taken off as well, and the site then shows both figures.
4. Public holidays are recalculated from Schedule 1 of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994, with Easter worked out for the year and the Sunday rule of section 2(1). The result must equal the holiday list printed in each year’s Gazette, and the gov.za list for the years it covers, except where gov.za is known to differ (listed below: it leaves out Wednesday 4 November 2026 and Monday 27 December 2027, and has no 2028 list yet).
5. A day the President declares a public holiday under section 2A of the Act (for example an election day) is added only from its own proclamation in the Government Gazette, saved with the gov.za notice page. The proclamation must name the day and carry its Gazette number and date. If the school calendar came out before the proclamation, the Gazette’s own day counts stay on the page, beside the counts that remain once the declared day is taken off (Wednesday 4 November 2026 in Term 4 of 2026). The gov.za documents are searched for “Public Holidays Act: Declaration” each time the sources are read again.
6. A second, separate check compares every date and count with the saved copies again. Only then does a year appear on the site.

Where official pages disagree, and what is missing

• Page that could not be read. The Department of Basic Education’s School Calendar web page could not be opened when the sources were read. The same calendars were read from the Government Gazette on gov.za and from the Department’s own calendar PDFs.
• Official pages disagree. The gov.za School calendar page shows 2027 Term 3 as 20 July to 1 October and Term 4 as 11 October to 8 (10) December. Those are the proposed dates of Gazette 51400 (15 October 2024). The published Gazette 52178 of 25 February 2025, and the Department’s own 2027 calendar, have Term 3 from 20 July to 22 September and Term 4 from 5 October to 8 (10) December. This site follows the published Gazette.
• Official pages disagree. The gov.za public holidays list for 2026 leaves out Wednesday 4 November 2026. Proclamation 346 in Government Gazette 55352 of 8 September 2026 declared that day a public holiday throughout South Africa for the local government elections, so this site shows it. The 2026 school calendar was published before that, so its Term 4 and year counts do not include the day.
• Official pages disagree. The gov.za public holidays list for 2027 leaves out Monday 27 December 2027. The Day of Goodwill falls on Sunday 26 December 2027, Gazette 52178 lists 27 December as a public holiday and section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act requires it, so this site shows it.
• Coverage. The gov.za public holidays page does not cover 2028 yet. The 2028 dates come from the holiday list in Gazette 55619 (the 2028 school calendar), checked against Schedule 1 of the Act and the Easter dates.
• Not published yet. No 2029 school calendar, published or proposed, was found on gov.za or education.gov.za. This site shows no 2029 date until one appears in the Gazette.
• Days declared for one year. The President may declare an extra public holiday by proclamation in the Gazette (section 2A of the Public Holidays Act). For 2026 that happened once: Wednesday 4 November 2026, the day of the local government elections, which this site shows. No such day had been declared for 2027 or 2028 when the sources were read on 6 November 2026; one would be added only from its proclamation.

Limits by design

• The Gazette marks the bracketed days as days for administration but does not say who attends them. A Department of Basic Education statement of November 2025 on proposed changes to the School Calendar Policy says educators report two days before the school year starts; it was a proposal for comment. School days are counted without the bracketed days, as the Gazette counts them.
• The Gazette calendar is for public schools. Independent schools set their own term dates, and this site does not list them.
• The Gazette publishes one calendar for public schools in all nine provinces, so there are no separate province pages.

Every source

All of the papers in this table were last read on 6 November 2026.