Educated to a certain degree?

Image by may the circle remain unbroken via Flick

Hello and an enlightening Saturday to you all,
Debate at present regarding university degrees and whether they should be more career and vocationally targetted, also whether a degree should be an aspiration for the majority. Clearly there are lots of unemployed graduates, so it can't be the be-all and end-all. Also I feel the world is already oversupplied with experts, or as I call them 'know-alls'!
Switch on the media and you find it is chock-full of experts and what is the one thing they have in common? They all state the bl***ing obvious! One today was rabbiting on about 'kids needing rules'. Insight like that takes many years of education! Also, I always shout at the screen, 'A kid is a young goat!'

As you know, I like to keep an eye on trends. The in-thing now is to pretend you are not elitist and academic, even if you are Stephen Hawking or Fry! Notice how posh tory ministers now flatten their vowels and veer towards Estuary english, in a vain attempt to sound like one of the people. Pale reflections of Tony (false modesty) Blair?
He, Tone, always said, 'Education, education, education!' Clearly, we never 'learn the lesson' as a society that politicos will tell us what they think we want to hear. They rarely change anything for the better in the long term.
Personally, I was very fortunate with my education. It has meant that I can read the Daily Telegraph from cover to cover without a dictionary and I can count to 10 without using my fingers!
My recollections of my schooldays are now hazy and before you ask, it wasn't in Roman times with an abacus. I do remember the discipline. To maintain order, each day one boy would be caned mercilessly in front of morning assembly. This carried on until his mother complained and they then set up a rota of boys. Many volunteered saying they quite liked that sort of thing! Well, it was an all boys' school. You learned fast never to bend over for the soap in the shower!
Anyway, my view from the armchair is that everyone needs the basics of literacy and numeracy and some should go on to academic heights-every great nation needs that, but most education should lead to useful employment. Why not comment below? Some of our greatest achievers, like Winston Churchill, flunked at school. What worries me more is the high percentage of schoolchildren (not young goats!), who thought Churchill was a tv dog! 'Oh, yuss'. I 'kid' you not! I'll make like a tree and leave it there. Back to my newspaper and no, I don't only look at the pictures.
Your esoterically yet democratically,

The Gogfather