The purpose of this article is to reconstruct a state of the debate ongoing for over a half of the century on the so-called the hidden program. The different theoretical positions are compared and presented – from those who take the hidden program as a central concept and category, to those denying its presence in social sciences. Contentious issues have been outlined, above all in the views of the nature, sources and results of this phenomenon. Vigorous discussions ongoing in the English literature, oft en having the ideological roots, are used by the author to present the own perspective of the hidden program as an important educational category, but ignored in Polish science, that may become an inspiration for theorists and practitioners and also may become a tool for diagnosis and critique.