What is your response to the view that the purpose of education is to prepare young people for the world of work?

Stance: AGAINST the narrow view — while preparation for work is a purpose, to reduce education to employability alone is reductive and undermines its civic, moral, and intellectual functions.

Definitions

• Education: Not just schooling but the broader process of intellectual, social, and moral formation, both formal (curricula) and informal (socialisation).
• World of work: Paid employment in an economic system requiring skills, qualifications, and adaptability.
• Purpose of education: The foundational ends for which societies institutionalise education; distinct from by-products or instrumental outcomes.

Assumptions under challenge

• Main assumption: That employability is the primary or sole purpose of education.
• Further assumptions: (1) That human flourishing and civic responsibility can be reduced to economic productivity. (2) That skills relevant to work are sufficient for the good life in a democracy. (3) That markets, rather than society as a whole, should dictate educational ends.

Point 1 — Education is about civic formation, not just economic productivity