By Ryan Fortune
THE start of another academic year, when millions of South African parents are gearing up to admit their children to another 10 months of daily incarceration, is the perfect moment to scrutinize the philosophies propping up our education system.
What is the purpose of education? Whose interests does it serve? And more importantly, why does it still look like it’s designed for a society that no longer exists?
South Africa’s education system is a carbon copy of the Western European model, birthed during the Industrial Revolution and tailored to produce two things: obedient workers and compliant citizens.
Its framework of standardised curricula, rigid hierarchies, and relentless conformity was never about nurturing genius or innovation but about serving industrial-age tycoons. Somehow, in 2025, we’re still shackled to it.
Historically, this system arrived in South Africa on colonial coattails. Its purpose wasn’t just economic but social — subjugating the colonised population while preparing settlers to fill managerial roles in the empire. Education as a tool of control, not liberation.
Fast forward, and the same system now limps along, out of sync with a world on the brink of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The question isn’t whether the system is outdated; it’s why we’re pretending it can be salvaged.
The Rothschild/Prussian model’s original intent wasn’t to foster critical thinking or creativity but to churn out compliant factory hands and disciplined soldiers. AGI is about to automate most of these tasks, rendering this model not just obsolete but actively harmful.
Training children to memorise facts in an age where ChatGPT can retrieve them faster than you can say “neo-colonial relic” is like teaching blacksmithing in the age of electric cars.
This year, automation is projected to displace 85 million jobs while creating 97 million new roles requiring creativity, problem-solving, and ethical reasoning. Yet our education system clings to rote learning and punishes deviation. Instead of preparing kids for the future, we’re mass-producing workers for jobs that won’t exist. It’s not education; it’s obsolescence on an industrial scale.
And then there’s the fetishisation of standardised testing - turning human potential into a number. These tests measure a narrow band of skills while ignoring creativity, emotional intelligence, and moral reasoning. Traits that will differentiate humans from machines in an AGI-dominated world are precisely what this system sidelines. By bowing to the gods of standardisation, we’re erasing individuality and ingenuity.
Picture this: Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs shackled to this system. Their disruptive thinking would’ve been stifled, labelled insubordination. Yet we insist on chaining the next generation’s visionaries to an assembly-line model of learning.
Some defenders claim the system ensures equity, offering every child a “basic education.” But let’s not kid ourselves. The wealthy buffer their children with tutors, extracurriculars, and tech tools while public schools limp along without resources.
The result? Inequality camouflaged as meritocracy. If equity were the goal, we’d be funding every school at the same level as the country’s top private institutions.
Others argue that this system instills discipline and work ethic. But what kind of discipline? The kind that follows orders unquestioningly or the kind that challenges norms and creates change? In the age of AGI, discipline won’t mean compliance; it’ll mean resilience, curiosity, and courage, qualities systematically stamped out by our current model.
Clinging to this antiquated system has dire social consequences. It perpetuates inequality, stifles dissent, and trains generations to equate success with obedience. Historically, this system upheld control, ensuring the masses stayed subservient to economic elites. Today, it’s no different: producing docile workers instead of the adaptive, ethical innovators the future demands.
If we persist, we’ll doom a generation to mass unemployment, inequality, and disillusionment. Worse, we risk outsourcing human creativity and ethics to machines, losing our humanity in the process. This isn’t just a failure; it’s a betrayal of our collective future.
So, what’s the alternative? A revolution. Education must pivot to prioritising creativity over conformity, critical thinking over memorisation, and ethics over obedience. Imagine curricula tailored to each learner’s strengths, powered by AI to adapt dynamically. Picture project-based learning that fosters collaboration, problem-solving, and real-world application. Tools like adaptive tech and AI mentors can personalise education like never before. What’s missing isn’t the means, it’s the will to act.
Let’s stop waiting for AGI to expose our system’s absurdity. The time for transformation is now. Because if we don’t, the joke won’t be on our outdated education system. It’ll be on us.
---------------
Ryan Fortune is an AI Implementation Consultant who helps businesses to use AI to streamline their processes. He is contactable via his website: https://payhip.com/ryanfortuneinc