I would like to add two perspectives on 'What Is Education For?'In the broad, philosophical sense, it is to increase human knowledge by sparing subsequent generations the burden of having to re-discover the discoveries of previous generations, since they can be learned faster than they can be re-discovered. This allows more time for further discovery. t is worth noting that we have long since reached quantities of global knowledge such that no person could ever hope to learn all of it even with thousands of lifetimes. So progress can only be made by specialists in their fields with little knowledge of what is happening in other fields. At present the various fields are still able to communicate with each other, but for how much longer? Computers help a lot with this, but how we deal with the difference between the static capacity of the human brain relative to the exponentially increasing quantity of knowledge remains to be seen. One can imagine capacity thresholds being reached and current upward trends plateauing. But perhaps artificial intelligence or quantum computing can extend the progression. In that case, one can imagine a world of dense technology all self-replicating with self-generating algorithms in which no human understands how any of it works.
The other, more cynical perspective I would share on ‘What Is Education For?’ is that, at least since the discovery of agriculture with allowed humans to produce surplus, humans have been looking for and finding ways to overtly or subtly ‘enslave’ each other in order to lay claim to that surplus, known in modern times as ‘wealth.’ The modern system, vastly more advanced and complex than previous models relies heavily on propaganda, control of information, to maintain an obedient and cooperative labor-farmed population, and the ‘education’ system is a primary means for dissemination of that propaganda.
So ask yourself, why does the state NOT already teach financial education about how capitalism works, about morality, relationships, etc.? You can suppose that of all the people whose job it is to think about what subjects to choose for educational curriculum, the relative importance of such subjects has never occurred to any of them, and that of the 7 billion odd people in the world, nobody has suggested any of them either. Or we can suppose that they have considered and rejected those subjects. If so, why? Well, there is very good reason to suppose that very powerful people believe - because it is true - that a financially and emotionally well educated, informed, and cooperative populace would not be in the best interests of the state. Perhaps they know that slaves work most diligently when they think they have been duped into thinking that they are free and in charge, and that too much education on certain subjects can get in the way of that delicate ‘educational’ process. Sorry for this post, the views expressed here are entirely my own.