ABSTRACT
Expansion is about quantity, about organizing society in such a way that a continuing increase is possible in output and demand, income and expenditure, people’s needs and the means to satisfy them. Whereas the central institutions of the expanding society were economic, those of the improving society are political, that is public, general and open. The central task of education, however, is not simply to produce spare parts for the economic process, but to develop human abilities by opening them up for varied choices rather than streamlining them towards alleged requirements. In more specific terms, this is a plea for recurrent education, that is, for the availability of educational opportunities at any time during life. Odd as it may sound, it is by breaking the alleged economic function of education, preparation for employment, that education would gain a social function worthy of that description, and contribute to overcoming the mechanical boundaries which divide human lives today.
