What is an education?

North Shore businesses are complaining about skill-less graduates of secondary school and polytechs. Duh... they've been pushing the bums on seats revenue model to breaking point (luckily for us!) for the last decade (coincidently with Labours term of office??).
No education provider should be allowed to release into the wild a child/young adult who can't read/write and is in-numerate - that should just go without saying. It's sad that it has to be said at all. Having said that, education is not just child-hood wordplace training so they can walk out of the classroom and into the plastics factory to operate the Moltor2000 or whatever the hell business thinks 'relevent' training is.
Draw a line down the middle for your minimum standards but i draw mine at the 3R's, an understanding of how to teach yourself new skills in a networked world and let businesses themselves do the specific training. I am still decidedly skeptical of 'community' roles that schools play. Feel free to play sport, kapa haka, yadayadayada but don't forget that these things make for a well-rounded individual and are an addition to the minimum not an alternative.