The key skills are those which grant social competence and confidence. The social skills that allow participation are most lacking in those least advantaged in society. The lack of these skills, assumptions and habits or interaction has been amply demonstrated to be the key determinants of exclusion in studies conducted in the US, the UK, the Federal Republic, the Netherlands and Australia. Training which involves real-world experience has proven invaluable to prepared minds. Schooling in the sense of attending a fixed place will certainly continue for the younger learner.
Schools tend to be still in a community, separating the pure spirit of local, normative orthodoxy.
Where the milieu is middle class, the orthodoxy is that of the liberal consensus laced with self-help and ambition. Where the milieu is broadly excluded, less constructive norms may flourish. It was remarked that whilst a financial director or an doctor from 1970 would feel helpless in the equivalent job today, most teachers would barely note the difference. This is worrying, and it implies that the five challenges that we have outlined will drive change in a major sector that has sheltered itself from such forces. It will need to rethink itself.