We’re often told that classrooms aren’t a place for politics—yet this couldn't be further from the truth. Education is filled with politics, from the glaringly obvious, like what you study in History, to the footnotes of the curriculum, like the texts you study in English. A Eurocentric narrative is created because the curriculum wasn’t designed solely to tell the truth; it was designed to protect power.

A Pick-and-Choose of Acceptable Topics

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Let’s start with the obvious: the topics we can discuss in classrooms can reveal more about political agendas than actual education. For instance, we’re encouraged to call out Russia for its war crimes in Ukraine—and rightfully so—yet the minute we mention Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, it’s deemed inappropriate for school because Israel is an ally of the West.

Apparently, condemning violence is only acceptable when the government isn’t complicit in it. It’s not about maintaining political neutrality—it’s about protecting their image and pushing their own beliefs rather than letting us create our own based on facts.

That isn’t the only double standard but rather just one example of many in the education system. In the UK, values like freedom of speech and tolerance are pushed throughout a student’s time in school. They are told to speak up when they see injustices and unfair treatment.

Be that as it may, if someone were to bring up racist policing or Boris Johnson comparing women wearing a Burqa to letterboxes, they would be silenced. Why are these values violated so often by those in power?

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Whitewashed History: What We Can Remember

While colonialism and slavery are taught in schools across the West, a lot is glossed over. To illustrate, when discussing the British Raj, the main focus is usually on the north of South Asia and how the throne was seized from Maharajah Duleep Singh. Even then, so much is missed, like the ideologies enforced upon Punjab that created a religious divide and ultimately led to the Partition of 1947.

South India’s suffering is rarely discussed. The brutality and repercussions of the Mysore Wars are something that isn’t deemed relevant for schools by the very government that won’t issue reparations.

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It isn’t just the actual colonialism itself that’s downplayed. Figures like Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson are often lionised and heavily praised for their achievements. Churchill led Britain during the Second World War and was seen as a defender of democracy against fascism, when he was an imperialist upholding white supremacy and colonial oppression.

He essentially caused the Bengal Famine and the deaths of three million people by refusing to send food aid to India. Jefferson was even more of a fraud, preaching liberty and democracy as a Founding Father of the US when he owned hundreds of slaves throughout his life and believed Black people were inferior morally and intellectually. It’s okay to mention their achievements, but what’s not is to blindly glorify them without acknowledging their moral shortcomings.

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In short, the education system reflects the political inconsistencies and the strategic deceit of capitalist governments. We’re not always given the full truth because it can be buried under sanitised history and institutional silence. It’s up to us to understand the world as it is—not how it’s presented to us.