The dilemmas and challenges of curriculum reform concern 1. the document itself (national curricular framework) and the process of “curriculum development “, as well as 2. its implementation into practice – broader “curriculum making” taking place in schools and other settings (Priestley & Philippou, 2018) and 3. other aspects of the educational system and the wider social situation that can function as enabler or barrier of the reform. Of course, these aspects cannot be completely separated in practice; however, in this paper I focus mainly on various aspects related to the design and development of the document itself. As international comparisons show, it is very difficult to find a balance between having too much or too little specifications in the curriculum. While an overloaded curriculum limits teachers’ flexibility, reducing content too much can mean that students aren’t guaranteed access to important knowledge and skills, exaggerating the injustice. "Specificity about what is to be learned in a curriculum is important for clarity, progression, and equality. Systems which have less-specific curricula have experienced teacher confusion, increased workload, inequalities between schools, and difficulties with student progression at transitions. “ (Crehan et al., 2025) This paper shows the difficulty of finding the optimal form of a national curriculum in a post-socialist context.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR) in 1991, fifteen independent states emerged across a vast territory covering approximately one-sixth of the world’s land surface. These states inherited a common educational legacy shaped by the late Soviet model of general and higher education, characterized by a highly centralized national curriculum, narrow specialization, tuition-free education at all levels, and guaranteed—yet compulsory—employment for graduates. Over the subsequent three decades, however, the political trajectories, social structures, and educational policies of these former “brotherly” nations have diverged significantly.

The challenges of schooling and curriculum reform in post-socialist countries continue to stimulate the development of educational theory and research (Goodson & Mikser, 2023; Silova et al., 2017). One of the major issues concerns the reliability and interpretation of data and sources.

During the Soviet period, educational research tended to idealize socialist education and emphasize its supposed superiority over Western systems. While traces of this perspective persist, recent literature often reflects the opposite tendency, emphasizing systemic deficiencies in ways that may serve to justify international development assistance. Simplified negative portrayals of the Soviet curriculum model frequently emerge within this discourse.

While Central European countries that were Soviet satellites experienced a shorter period of communist rule and retained greater curricular continuity and autonomy, former Soviet republics faced a higher level of curricular harmonization and a more complex post-Soviet transformation.

Focusing on Georgia, this study highlights the complexities of curriculum development in a conflict-torn country and examines the ongoing search for balance between school and teacher autonomy and the structured guidance provided by the national curriculum. It also illustrates the ambiguous effects of importing international models of curriculum, teaching, and assessment into the post-Soviet context.

This study employed an instrumental case study design to gain in-depth insight into curriculum making and implementation in Georgia. The case study approach enabled the examination of complex processes accounting for the multi-layered structure of education system and interactions across global, national, and local levels. The study combines analysis of legislative and curricular documents and interviews with actors at various sites of curriculum making. Documentary data were collected from public sources, including official websites of the Government of Georgia and the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth, as well as platforms of relevant international organizations. The primary focus was on the analysis of first-, second-, and third-generation national curricula of Georgia and at the same time compare their characteristics with developments in the international context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three education experts involved in national curriculum development and implementation. Teacher participants were initially recruited using a snowball sampling method. Early analysis of interview data revealed significant differences between public and private schools, as well as between urban and rural contexts. In response, additional participants were recruited to ensure information saturation regarding how varying working conditions influence teachers’ understanding and implementation of the national curriculum. In total, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 teachers working in urban and rural public and private schools. The sample included teachers of English (12), History (4), Georgian Language and Literature (4), and integrated subjects such as Mathematics, STEM, and Information Technology (5). All participants had a minimum of five years of teaching experience, allowing for comparative analysis of their perception of the first, second, and third generation national curricula. Interview transcripts were read and re-read, coded using a paper-and-pencil method with memo writing, and subjected to open coding. Emerging codes were grouped into thematic categories, which structured the presentation of findings. The research respected ethical rules with the confidentiality of participants fully protected. From the complex picture of curriculum making at various sites of the educational system, this contribution focuses on the evolution and perception of structural and formal aspects of various curriculum documents.

Three generations of National Curriculum reforms were to become the main axis of educational change in the independent Georgia. The curricula aimed to modernize the post-soviet school system and implement competence-based learning. However, teachers indicate that formal aspects of documents have constituted major obstacles to effective use. Each of the following curricula brought an increasing degree of specificity/detail in defining the goals and contents of school instruction. In the first-generation national curriculum, the goals of the entire education were set in very general terms, which were not elaborated on the level of individual subjects at all, while the third-generation national curriculum already states relatively specific standards of student performance for individual school subjects. The teachers' attitudes here are somewhat contradictory: while in the first-generation national curriculum document they criticize the absence of specifications, now they point out that the newer generations of the curriculum—especially the third generation—are characterized by the excessive complexity and superficial theoretical framing. Program documents describe goals and outcomes in detail now, but the objectives and expected outcomes are overly complicated and sometimes age-inappropriate and fail to account for students’ needs and realities of some public schools as those working in rural, remote and mountain regions. This complexity and arcane “language of the reform” is perceived not only as a pedagogical challenge but also as an administrative burden, since teachers are forced to spend substantial time interpreting texts and adapting them to lessons. Terminological overload also results in superficial changes: while the documents appear “modern” and aligned with “European standards,” in practice, their content is difficult to internalize. The findings illustrate the difficult search for a balance in the degree of specificity of the national framework that would provide autonomy to successful schools and sufficient support to under-resourced schools operating in difficult conditions.

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