The current educational system is broken. It was designed back in the time of factories when its purpose was to educate people to become perfect employees for the system. While the economy is quickly adjusting after the economical crisis and the changes the system has suffered, education is still to keep up.
People rely too much on formal, systematic, mass education systems. Many people consider that mass education is enough to help you get a job and have a decent lifestyle. While this has been true in the past, now it’s not so much the case anymore. Think about the ’50; if you had a university degree, you had access to the best possible jobs. That’s because very few people had a university degree. Now it’s estimated that one third of the people will have a university degree.
Education does not offer skills. It only creates a base for skills to be developed, increased, refined, but it does not substitute them. Having a degree or having followed a few training courses is only a step in mastering something. I have come across people who claimed that they knew how to do “anything non-technical” purely by graduating from a university.
On the other hand, the opposite is true as well. Experience is not enough. Some people rely only on their experience and on how they have done things until the present moment. As the world evolves and technology influences a lot more profoundly the world we live in, new models, ways of acting and new means become available. Refining your knowledge offers you access to all of these. Continuous learning will help you keep up with the latest technology and practices.
Education is not the same thing as learning. You can learn from doing, from reading a book, from attending a training, from having a conversation with someone, from seeing someone do something. Education offers you a degree, a lot of information that you might not need and if done right, a part of the skills you will need to refine afterwards.
Learning offers you what you need, only faster and without a degree.