Quote Originally Posted by dml1954 View Post
Presumably, if you believe that, you also believe that people who get an education, work hard all their lives to better themselves and manage to put savings aside as well, should have all their money taken off them by the state and given to people who leave school early, sit around all day doing bog all and sponge off the rest of the population by claiming every benefit going under the sun. God help us all.

You managed to spin that in an untended direction.

There are many functions of education. The question for me is this. Are schools as they are currently formatted (that is with a subject based curriculum which is largely arbitrary outside of reading, writing and arithmetic) the best way of addressing the the things which society values which include;
* Transmission of Culture. Education instills and transmits social norms values and beliefs into the next generation.
* Social integration.
* Career Selection.
* Techniques of Learning Skills.
* Socialization.
* Rational Thinking.
* Adjustment in Society.