Education policy and soft power: In Before the Law, Franz Kafka tells of a man who waits his whole life before a gate that was always meant for him. The gatekeeper never denies entry, yet never opens it. In our era of mass education, the classroom has become that gate — seemingly open, yet subtly guarded by narratives, priorities, and power. What should be a portal to freedom often turns into a threshold held in limbo. Around the world, classrooms are evolving into quiet arenas of geo-education — where soft power, identity, and sovereignty silently contend.
Curricula are no longer neutral vessels of learning; they are instruments of national cognition and identity. In India, the National Education Policy 2020 has reshaped textbooks, syllabi, and pedagogical priorities. It emphasises Indian knowledge systems, multilingualism, environmental literacy, and constitutional values. Officially, this is framed as modernisation. In practice, it recalibrates the narrative that young citizens inherit — one that aims to anchor cultural confidence as much as foster employability.
China’s example is more direct. Xi Jinping Thought now permeates the curriculum from the earliest grades, embedding ideological conformity into pedagogy. In the United States, political polarisation drives battles over what may be said about race, gender, and inequality, with some states legislating classroom content. Across geographies, education has become a tool for narrative control rather than inquiry.
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Curriculum as soft power
Political theorist Joseph S Nye defined soft power as the ability to shape others’ preferences through the attraction of one’s values and culture. Curriculum nationalism weaponises this appeal at the formative stage of identity formation. Education thus shifts focus from how to think to what to think. From a Foucauldian perspective, it becomes a technology of governance — shaping not by force, but by defining what is thinkable, teachable, and permissible.
The politics of curriculum reform cannot be understood through ideology alone. In India, the real test of the National Education Policy 2020 lies in its implementation architecture — across states, boards, and teacher networks. The vision of rooted, global-ready education demands resources, teacher capacity, and institutional autonomy.
Curriculum reform is ultimately a governance challenge. The gap between well-written policy and classroom practice often stems from fragmented institutions, inadequate teacher training, and limited fiscal support for pedagogical renewal. Without strong state-level textbook councils, transparent review systems, and professional development pipelines, even the most enlightened reforms risk becoming tokenistic. Education policy, therefore, is not merely a matter of content but of capacity — the ability to sustain reform through investment, independence, and accountability.
Education policy: From indoctrination to inquiry
This contest has deep philosophical roots. Paulo Freire warned against the “banking model” of education, where students merely receive deposits of knowledge. His alternative — a “problem-posing” education — sees learning as dialogue, reflection, and liberation. When curricula are scripted, students become passive consumers rather than critical citizens.
Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer offered another lens: the “fusion of horizons.” Understanding arises not from fixed truths but from dialogue between past and present, between tradition and openness. A hermeneutic classroom is therefore not a sealed canon but a meeting ground — of legacy and innovation, self and society. Indoctrination, by contrast, freezes this dialogue.
Education policy and democratic process
Reimagining education also means reimagining its governance. Curriculum reform must not remain the preserve of state committees or ideological circles. For democratic legitimacy, it requires participation — from teachers, parents, students, and civil society. Nations like Finland and South Korea have shown how community engagement, independent academic councils, and teacher associations can enhance trust and resilience in curriculum design.
If India’s education reforms are to succeed, they must open up to scholarly oversight and public dialogue, ensuring that curriculum development remains a collective and transparent process. Education, after all, is a public good — and public goods thrive in sunlight, not secrecy.
India’s search for balance
The National Education Policy aspires to balance rootedness with global readiness. By linking heritage and critical thinking, it seeks to create citizens who are both culturally grounded and globally competent. Its focus on experiential learning, digital literacy, and vocational training aligns with UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education (GCED) framework, which promotes ethics, sustainability, and intercultural literacy. If implemented with institutional capacity and democratic oversight, India’s education reform could serve as a model of plural modernisation — rooted in its past, responsive to its future.
The classroom is no longer a neutral space; it is the quiet battlefield of the 21st century. The struggle is not over facts, but over frameworks of meaning — who defines them, who teaches them, and to what end.
Our task is to ensure that education liberates rather than confines. As Kafka’s parable reminds us, the gate was always open — it is we who must walk through it. A wise curriculum will not fence learners in with national myths, but equip them to engage the world with rooted confidence and reflective empathy. The future of democracy, identity, and reason itself may depend on how we teach the next generation to think, not just what to think.
References:
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf
Gadamer, H.-G. (1975/2004). Truth and method (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1960) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/
Nye, J. S. (2004). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. PublicAffairs.
UNESCO. (2021). Global citizenship education: Topics and learning objectives. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000232993
Rollins Teaching-Learning Core. (n.d.). Critical pedagogy: Paulo Freire. Emory University. https://sph.emory.edu/info/faculty-staff/rollins-teaching-learning-core/teach-learn-principles/critical-pedagogy/index.html
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). Hans-Georg Gadamer. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gadamer/
Debdulal Thakur is Professor, Vinayaka Mission’s School of Economics and Public Policy, Chennai.