Building Values through Formal, Informal, and Hidden Curriculum

A school timetable lists subjects, periods, and exam dates. What it never lists is the part of schooling that quietly shapes who a young person becomes. Long before a formal lesson on ethics begins, children are already absorbing honesty, fairness, empathy, and cooperation from the way a class is run, the stories they read, and the behaviour of the adults around them. The curriculum is not just a syllabus of facts. It is one of the most powerful instruments a society has for building character. Understanding how it does this means looking at three layers at once: the formal curriculum that is openly taught, the informal curriculum that surrounds it, and the hidden curriculum that works beneath conscious notice.

The curriculum’s role in value development 🔗

Education has never been only about transferring information. The National Education Policy 2020 states that the purpose of the education system is to develop good human beings capable of rational thought and action, possessing compassion and empathy, courage and resilience, scientific temper, and sound ethical moorings. This is a deliberate statement of intent. It tells us that values are not an optional add-on to academic learning but a central goal of it.

The National Curriculum Framework, designed in line with this policy, treats values and dispositions as integral to the aims of education rather than a separate moral science period. These values are drawn from Constitutional values and broader human values, ranging from truth and non-violence to responsibility and respect for diversity. When a curriculum is designed well, every classroom becomes a space where a value can take root, whether the official topic is photosynthesis or the freedom struggle.

There is a practical reason for spreading values across the whole curriculum rather than confining them to one subject. Values that are only preached tend to be forgotten, while values that are practised through daily learning tend to last. A child who repeatedly experiences fairness, honesty, and cooperation as part of ordinary schoolwork internalises them far more deeply than one who simply memorises a definition of these terms for an exam.

The formal curriculum’s direct impact 🔗

The formal curriculum is the visible, planned programme of subjects, lessons, and assessments. Its power for value education lies in a simple truth: every subject already carries values inside it. A teacher does not need to interrupt a chemistry lesson to talk about integrity, because the discipline of chemistry demands integrity to function. The task is to make these embedded values explicit so that learners notice them.

Science and the value of honesty and inquiry 🔗

Science rewards curiosity and punishes dishonesty. A student who fudges an experiment’s readings to get the “right” answer learns nothing, while one who records what actually happened, even when it is inconvenient, practises intellectual honesty. The laboratory teaches that evidence matters more than opinion and that conclusions must be earned. Research reviewing values in science education has found that when learners’ values are acknowledged in the science classroom, their engagement, achievement, and wellbeing all improve. Scientific temper, a phrase written into the Indian Constitution, is itself a value: the habit of questioning claims and respecting evidence.

Literature and languages and the value of empathy 🔗

Reading a story is a rehearsal for understanding other people. When learners follow a character through a moral dilemma, they step into a perspective that is not their own. A novel about a family facing injustice or a poem about loss builds the capacity to feel with others. Literature and the humanities open a window into the human experience that purely technical subjects cannot provide. Discussion of why a character acted as they did, and whether they were right, trains moral reasoning in a way that no lecture on “being good” can match.

Social studies, history, and the value of justice 🔗

History and social studies place learners inside the great questions of fairness, courage, and civic duty. Studying the freedom movement raises real questions about justice, sacrifice, and standing up to wrong. Studying how resources are distributed or how laws are made develops an understanding of rights and responsibilities. The Government of India has noted that the education policy provides for ethical reasoning and traditional values such as service, non-violence, truth, tolerance, and respect for diversity, much of which finds a natural home in the social sciences.

Mathematics and the value of precision and fairness 🔗

Mathematics may seem value-neutral, yet it teaches discipline, honesty, and careful reasoning. A proof cannot be bluffed; a calculation is either correct or it is not. This rewards patience and the willingness to check one’s own work. Group problem-solving in mathematics also builds cooperation, as learners explain their thinking and accept correction. The precision learned here carries into adult life as careful, well-reasoned decision-making.

The informal curriculum: learning beyond the lesson 🔗

The informal curriculum covers the planned activities that happen outside the structure of subject lessons. Assemblies, sports, clubs, debates, drama, school trips, and community service all belong here. These activities are organised by the school but are not graded in the way subjects are, which frees learners to participate for the experience itself.

This is where many values move from theory into practice. A student who reads about teamwork in a textbook may not feel it, but a student playing in a team learns cooperation, fair play, and how to handle both winning and losing. Service and participation in community programmes are treated by the education policy as an integral part of holistic education, not an extra. When learners visit an old-age home, clean a public space, or raise funds for a cause, abstract ideas like compassion and responsibility become real actions with real consequences.

Debates and student councils teach a different cluster of values: listening to opposing views, disagreeing with respect, and accepting collective decisions. Cultural programmes that celebrate festivals and traditions from many communities quietly build respect for diversity, which is one of the core dispositions the curriculum aims to develop. The informal curriculum works because it is experiential. Values that are felt and acted upon are far harder to forget than values that are merely heard.

The hidden curriculum: the values nobody plans 🔗

The hidden curriculum is the most subtle of the three and often the most influential. It refers to the unwritten, unofficial, and frequently unintended lessons that learners absorb from the school environment. The idea was named by the educationist Philip Jackson in 1968, and as a review of his work explains, these messages shape values, beliefs, and attitudes and influence behaviour both inside and outside the school gate. Nobody writes the hidden curriculum into a lesson plan, yet everyone teaches it.

Teacher attitudes and behaviour 🔗

Learners watch adults closely, and they trust actions far more than words. A teacher who tells a class to be honest but marks unfairly teaches dishonesty by example. A teacher who admits a mistake, treats every learner with equal respect, and stays patient under pressure teaches integrity and fairness without ever naming them. As one analysis of the hidden curriculum notes, the way a teacher conducts a class becomes part of what is learned, whether the teacher rewards obedience or encourages independent and creative thinking. The teacher is, in effect, a living model of the values the school hopes to build.

School culture, rules, and the physical environment 🔗

The wider climate of a school sends constant signals about what is valued. A school that ranks and compares learners relentlessly teaches that success means defeating others, while one that recognises effort and collaboration teaches a different lesson. Even rules carry messages. A school heavy on regulation may communicate that order matters more than creativity. The hidden curriculum also shapes attitudes toward respect, diversity, and cooperation, which is precisely why it deserves attention rather than neglect.

The danger of the hidden curriculum is that it can undermine the formal one. A school can teach equality in social studies while disciplinary practices quietly favour some learners over others. Because of this, educators are encouraged to make the hidden curriculum visible to themselves. Guidance from a university teaching resource argues that teachers should examine their own unspoken assumptions and expectations, since these silently govern who feels they belong. The good news is that once a school becomes aware of these hidden signals, it can align them with its stated values rather than letting them work against them.

Bringing the three layers together 🔗

Formal, informal, and hidden curricula are not separate systems competing for attention. They are three layers of a single educational experience, and they are most effective when they point in the same direction. A lesson on honesty in the formal curriculum is reinforced when honesty is celebrated in the informal curriculum and modelled by teachers in the hidden curriculum. When all three agree, values become part of a learner’s identity. When they contradict each other, the hidden layer usually wins, because lived experience always speaks louder than instruction. Building values, then, is less about adding a new subject and more about making the whole school environment consistent with the character it hopes to nurture.

What do you think? Looking back at your own schooling, which value do you remember learning most strongly, and did it come from a lesson, an activity, or simply the way the adults around you behaved? If you were designing a school today, how would you make sure its hidden curriculum supported the values it openly claims to teach?

References

1. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/NCF-School-Education-Pre-Draft.pdf
2. https://ncfse.frappe.cloud/home/chapter-2-values-and-dispositions
3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057267.2024.2412456
4. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1849881
5. https://www.simplypsychology.org/hidden-curriculum.html
6. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/education/hidden-curriculum
7. https://www.bu.edu/teaching-writing/resources/teaching-the-hidden-curriculum/