[msg3]

..or time. Schools in the UK have already got a curriculum that's pretty full. Everyone will have their own different list of "essential life skills" and trying to fit them all into the curriculum is impossible.

One thing that is often missing from these conversations is that arguably the goal of education isn't really to teach you any specific skill, but rather to give you the capability to learn things by yourself.

Part of this process will necessarily mean teaching you things like reading and writing, but whenever I hear "My school didn't teach me X, so I had to teach myself, wasn't my school terrible", I think "no, probably not."