How Educational Institutions Fail Our Children
Stop Watching Inequality Thrive: We Have to Revolutionise Education.
For as long as I can remember, education has been treated as a pathway to economic self-reliance. It’s a story as old as industrialization: schools were modelled on factories designed to churn out young people for the industrial complex — from low-paid slaves and disciplined workers to intellectual elites. That model worked for the 19th century. But in 2025? It’s an anchor dragging down progress, suffocating creativity, and reinforcing inequality.
Listen to the Deep-Dive Podcast.
Watching Professor Scott Galloway’s TED Talk (How the US is Destroying Young People’s Future) poses a brutal but necessary question: Do we love our children? He argues that systemic inequities — ballooning tuition fees, the scarcity of prestige, and intergenerational wealth transfers — prove we’re failing the next generation. I agree, but I’d take it further: the absolute failure lies in how history institutionalized education.
Let me be clear — this isn’t just about access to education. It’s about access to high-quality skills development that nurtures creativity, resilience, and adaptability. These are the tools young people need to thrive in a world defined by change. Yet the current system remains laser-focused on perpetuating prestige and economic utility, leaving most students without a fair shot at success — most graduating high school knowing their place in an unequal society. Education as an Institution was initially designed to achieve precisely this outcome because 19th-century society operated based on class. Low-paid jobs dominated the economy. Affluent families needed servants, power stations needed men to shovel coal, factories needed machine operators, Governments needed highly educated college graduates, and so on.
The Tragedy of Institutionalized Education
The roots of this problem run deep. For over two centuries, education has been a tool to serve industrial and economic goals. Schools were designed to produce a disciplined workforce and an elite corps of leaders to preserve cultural identity. Creativity? Subjective self-awareness? These were considered luxuries, distractions from education’s “real” purpose.
What’s worse, this factory education model is still alive and well. Curriculum priorities are essentially unchanged, focused on creating economically self-reliant individuals who fit neatly into predefined roles. This system rewards conformity and punishes divergence. And for those who can’t afford access to “high-prestige” institutions, the deck is stacked against them.
Prestige vs. Skills: A False Dichotomy
Here’s the bitter irony: the prestige of an institution is often valued more than the skills it teaches. Parents pay astronomical sums to send their children to “elite” schools, believing the brand name will unlock opportunities. For a fortunate few, it does. However, for most young people who attend zero-prestige schools, it creates a handicap they may never overcome.
We’ve built an educational caste system. And the biggest tragedy? It doesn’t have to be this way. Skills — not the institution — are the great equalizers. Suppose we focus on democratising access to high-quality skills development. In that case, we can tear down the barriers that keep opportunity out of reach for so many.
Why We Need to Start Over
It’s tempting to think we can reform the current system — tinker with its policies, adjust its structures, and make incremental improvements. But the truth is, this system was never designed to promote equality. Its foundations are rooted in serving class-based hierarchies and economic stratification. Incremental reforms won’t address the depth of these systemic flaws.
To achieve true equality of rights to opportunities and pathways in life, we need to blow up the institution of education — metaphorically speaking — and rebuild it from the ground up. This isn’t about disruption for its own sake. It’s about constructing a system with equity, creativity, and adaptability as its core principles.
An Alternative: Experiential Learning
This is why I created experiential learning programs like United Nations SDG Pathways, Enterprise in the Community (EitC), and Impact Blueprint Innovation. These aren’t workshops in the traditional sense. They’re metaphorical bridges — devices for navigating the structured routines of school to the unstructured challenges of the real world.
Here’s what makes them different:
- Real-World Challenges: Participants solve authentic problems — addressing global sustainability goals, helping local businesses innovate, or developing strategic solutions for complex issues.
- Skill-Building Over Prestige: These programs focus on creativity, resilience, collaboration, and critical thinking — transferable skills that matter far more than the name on a diploma.
- Teacher-Student-Parent Collaboration: Teachers act as mentors, not bureaucrats. Parents are active participants, not passive observers. This triad creates a support system rooted in trust and shared purpose.
- AI-Enhanced Learning: Generative AI tools supercharge problem-solving and ideation, ensuring students are equipped for the future.
These programs aren’t about rote learning — they’re about transformation. Students leave with the confidence and skills to navigate ambiguity, solve problems creatively, and embrace lifelong learning.
Creativity and Subjective Bonding: Reclaiming What Matters
One of institutional education’s most significant failures is its neglect of creativity. We’ve spent 200 years teaching young people how to conform, follow the rules, fit moulds, and suppress imagination in favour of utility.
That’s not how we thrive. Creativity nurtures our souls. It’s how we make meaning in a chaotic world. My programs centre creativity as a core competency, not an afterthought. By working on real-world challenges, students learn to think beyond the obvious, experiment without fear of failure, and develop solutions that matter.
But it’s not just about creativity — it’s about connection. Teachers in my programs are not distant professionals enforcing arbitrary standards. They’re storytellers, mentors, and collaborators, deeply invested in their students’ growth. This subjective bond creates an environment where students feel seen, heard, and supported — something the bureaucratic machinery of institutional education can never replicate.
A Call to Action
If society is to prosper equally and develop culturally, we must rethink education and rebuild it as a system that serves all students, not just the privileged few. There is no wiser investment in our collective futures than creating a publicly funded learning platform focused on skills development rather than knowledge retention.
School tests should not be about whether students can recall details of a crucial historical, cultural, or war event. That information is available through technology, and a poor outcome from a knowledge test does one thing — destroy confidence.
Instead, the focus must be empowering students to solve problems, collaborate, and think critically. Programs like my UN SDG Pathways, Enterprise in the Community, and Impact Blueprint Innovation prove it can be done efficiently and with high impact.
The question is no longer whether we have the resources — we do. The question is whether we have the will. Are we prepared to destroy the institution of education as we know it and rebuild it as a system that serves all students equitably, prioritising creativity and skills development?
The education system must be redesigned so students develop their innate potential.
How many more generations will stand and watch inequality thrive?
About the author: Greg Twemlow, Founder of XperientialAI©. Read more of my 300+ articles at: https://gregtwemlow.medium.com/
Greg Twemlow: Sharing what I’ve learned from my career of 35 years as a citizen of the world, parent, corporate executive, entrepreneur, and CEO of XperientialAI, focused on experiential learning for maximum impact with AI. Contact Greg: greg@xperiential.ai
