When international education silences other knowledge systems

Cognitive Diplomacy and a UNESCO-anchored institutional framework

higher education has become an unacknowledged transmission system for one family of knowledge traditions, dressed in the language of standards, quality, and equity. Universities across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific now operate under benchmarks, accreditation regimes, and digital platforms whose underlying epistemological commitments are taken as universal. The paper specifies how cognitive diplomacy would reshape five concrete institutional logics: international benchmarking, language policy, quality assurance, global metrics, and digital infrastructure. It then sets out an institutional architecture, anchored at UNESCO but distributed across regional bodies and reform-minded national agencies, and submits each component to critical evaluation.