And they learn current events from News at 10. At school, at church, from older family members. Workers might learn on the job. A small segment of the population got to go to college. One can learn lifelong.
Businesses actively train their staff.
There are all sorts of seminars, workshops, adult classes. There are countless self-improvement books available. And there are more people educated now. Yes, there are a lot of problems with education, lots of dropouts, etc. But remember, most of our ancestors were peasants, farmers, people of the land.