Although Asmal was not as close to President Thabo Mbeki as he was to President Nelson Mandela, he was promoted to Minister of Education in 1999 after that year's general elections. Among his initiatives as Minister of Education was the launching in 2001 of the South African History Project "to promote and enhance the conditions and status of the learning and teaching of history in the South African schooling system, with the goal of restoring its material position and intellectual purchase in the classroom".