Pendangkalan Makna Pendidikan dalam Implementasi Kurikulum Merdeka Menurut Perspektif Gert Biesta

This article examines the erosion of the educational meaning within the implementation of the Kurikulum Merdeka (Indonesian Independent Curriculum) through the lens of Gert Biesta’s philosophy of education. Although Kurikulum Merdeka is normatively projected as an effort to restore teachers’ pedagogical autonomy, foster students’ creativity, and actualize the Profile of Pancasila Students, its implementation in schools frequently becomes trapped in technocratic patterns that emphasize administrative procedures, performativity, and measurable learning outcomes. This phenomenon aligns with Biesta’s critique of learnification, namely the reduction of education to standardized learning activities that overlook its fundamental function as a process of subject formation. This study employs a literature-based inquiry using critical analysis, critical interpretive synthesis, and hermeneutic reading to examine Biesta’s key works, academic literature on curriculum critique, and policy documents related to Kurikulum Merdeka. The analysis is conducted through thematic coding of concepts such as learnification, performativity, the three functions of education (qualification, socialisation, subjectification), and the role of the diplomatic teacher. The findings reveal that the implementation of Kurikulum Merdeka faces three fundamental issues: the dominance of technocratic logic that reduces teachers’ roles to administrative facilitators; an imbalance between the functions of qualification and socialisation compared to subjectification, which constitutes the core of education according to Biesta; and the limited dialogical space that enables students to appear as ethical subjects. The gap between the curriculum’s philosophical vision and its practical enactment stems from an educational culture that remains bureaucratic and outcome-oriented. This article argues for the need to reorient Kurikulum Merdeka toward a more humanistic, democratic, and world-centered form of education by positioning teachers as moral agents who mediate students’ relationships with reality in a responsible manner.