Education is an end in itself not a preparation for the workplace

It's a well observed truth that because everyone has had an education, everyone feels well placed to comment on all aspects of education. Often that takes the form of "My experience of education was like this so all education should be more/less like that." This often finds its most pure expression in the form of mainstream journalists giving answers to questions nobody asked them and giving a state of the union address on education anyway. In a recent article in the Times, Caitlin Moran decided to offer herself up as education secretary and outlined her vision: My plan is very straightforward, and rests on two facts: (1) the 21st-century job market requires basically nothing of what is taught in 21st-century schools, and (2) everyone has a smartphone. First, as anyone with a teenage/young adult child will know, the notion of them going into a full-time, long-term job with a pension at the end of it looks like something we left behind in the 20th century. The old pathway – learn a skill, use it for 40 years, then retire – is over. The jobs of the future require flexibility and self-motivation. Indeed, the jobs of the future increasingly require you to invent your own job. The majority of jobs our children will have – in just a few years’ time – have almost certainly not been invented yet. Those of you playing TED talk education cliche bingo will probably be already screaming "full house!" but hold your horses folks...