Like STEM, the ASSH strand, which is officially called HUMSS in DepEds curriculum was created because of the K to 12 reform under RA 10533 the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. As the K to 12 program was slowly introduced by DepEd starting in School Year 2011-2012 the Academic Track finally formed with four strands and HUMSS was one of them.
HUMSS became one of the strands under the Academic Track of the K to 12 curriculum, which helps students follow four career paths: Academic Technical-Vocational Livelihood, Sports and Arts and Design. The curriculum was carefully designed to create thinking, socially responsible and globally aware citizens, which is different from STEMs focus on science and math and from ABMs focus on business. From the beginning HUMSS had four Humanities subjects and four Social Science subjects showing a balance between creative and expressive subjects and analytical subjects.
Over time HUMSS became one of the flexible strands because graduates could easily go into law, psychology, education, journalism or even medicine. A wide range of options that made it popular with students who were still deciding what they wanted to do. Graduates have found jobs in artistic, legislative and corporate fields, which is not common for a single strand. That is one of the reasons why many schools change the name of HUMSS locally (like San Roque NHS, which calls it ASSH) to highlight the "Arts" part along, with Social Sciences and Humanities.