What is important?

Everyone is wired in their own way, yet we have a system where every child is herded through a process of obedience and competition with the promise of well paid work at the end of it or a dead end career if they fail. It does not encourage creativity and free thinking. Is this an environment we want to send our young ones into?

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It is true that we value knowledge and want our children to do well in life. A formal education is necessary to a degree, otherwise no one could read or write. But what level does one have to be at before they can specialise and go to learn what they want to?

What should be "compulsory"? language for sure, basic maths and science. Beyond that many people will never use much of their "education" most of what I know today is based on my interests and the books and internet sites I choose to read. How up-to-date are our school textbooks these days? Go look for one on space and see if it even has the word heliophysics, most computer dictionaries still don't!

So what is a good solution. What age do you know what you want to do? How do you prove to someone that you know said subject? What level of education should be formal and what should be chosen?

Moving to adulthood, IMO anyone should be able to access any information that is not private at any time. This applies to learning. If we should keep similar structure for courses or not is another question, and going back to how do you prove you know something?

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." - Albert Einstein