Since the initial publication of "Deschooling Society" in 1971 there has been little change to school and centralized institutions, at least in the United States. Illich's pessimistic message on the future school and institutional forces did little to create any change in society. Yet, upon reading Illich, one is often shocked at the resonance of the problems in his time and of Illich's predictions with that of today.
Illich's basic premise is that school is a degrading institution which acts as a god of knowledge and which prepares a belief into the student of the efficiency and legitimacy of centralized bureaucratic institutions based on an approved certification by the state. Illich sees "Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent. Everywhere this same curriculum instills in the pupil the myth that increased production will provide a better life. And everywhere it develops the habit of self-defeating consumption of services and alienating production, the tolerance for institutional dependence and the recognition of institutional rankings." Illich states that in a new society "It must not start with the question `What should someone learn?' but with the question `What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?". Illich doesn't just attack schools, he feels though that schools are at the heart of the problem of an institutionalized society as it prepares us for everything else.
Illich's solutions to the modern school and institutions are to abolish them and bring them back into the control of people. Illich's "deschooled" society would consist of numerous community organized programs where people are allowed to learn what they desire, and where "An entirely new elite would be produced, an elite of those who earned their education by sharing it". Illich's overall solution is more complex than this and it unfortunately does raise many questions of sustainability and effectiveness, but I assume it can just be used as a template of a future society. While in response to other institutions he often bashes technology and how he feels it has been manipulated by the state. With this it might seem that Illich is anti-technology, but no, he merely argues for bringing it back into the hands of the people. He states "We need research on the possible use of technology to create institutions which serve personal, creative and autonomous interaction and emergence of values which cannot be substantially controlled by technocrats".
His greatest prophecy of today's is the school's growing inefficiency to make students learn despite growing costs; Illich saw in his time that "Everywhere in the world school costs have risen faster than enrollments and faster than the GNP; everywhere expenditures on school fall even further behind the expectations of parents, teachers and pupils". This seems very true in the United States where the costs of education (particularly higher education) have shot up since the 70s and yet the United States is drastically lagging behind the world in reading, mathematics and science skills. While a country like Finland, which has taken educational reforms reducing the authoritarian nature of schools is right at the top. In Illich's time Nixon formed a committee focusing on education costs which he attacked stating "The President's Committee for the study of school finance should ask not how to support or trim such increasing costs, but how they can be avoided". And here his commentary can also be connected to the rising cost of health care, as both education and health care are rising to ridiculous rates and policy makers are not looking at the cause of these enormous rates; Republicans are simply saying we must cut and Democrats are saying we must continue to fund. He also critiques economics in how the state is restricting entry into certain professions in order to protect the individuals in the profession thereby creating a shortage and breeding inefficiency. One way he saw this was through the "diminishing number of nurses in the United States owing to the rapid increase of four year B.S. programs in nursing" as opposed to two or three year programs.
In all Illich's work is stunningly relevant today as we are possibly facing a crisis point in near future in terms of the quality and cost of education and healthcare, and as our society is only getting more centralized into the control of bureaucrats and out of the hands of people. It would be nice if today policy makers could get a hold of Illich today and really try to bring power back to the people.
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mintymoor
As revolutionary now (2019) as when it was first written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2019
