The purpose of education should be to provide students with a value system, a set ideas--not to prepare them for a specific job.

Should education only provide students with a value system, a set of ideas, just as the speaker's assert? Without any preparation for jobs, how would these students compete in a increasingly competitive society. Although this claim is not entirely without support, it runs contrary to our western view of the modern education's purpose which is emphasized as a means of both cultivating students' minds and preparing them for the job market. My view can be greatly substantiated by the following discussions.

Schools should teach values. Teaching values is a difficult task, but it is a crucial task. Nothing happens automatically; after all, there is no genetic transmission of virtue of value. Yet this is not to say that only to insert values and ideas into students' brains. The genuine education at any level should aims at cultivating students' creative thinking and developing their personality. So, there is no escaping the fact that students need as examples teachers who know difference ...