The aims and motives of schooling are changing, and it is becoming more and more a ritualized process of qualification-earning. The underlying causes of this change are traced through the education histories of Britain, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. It is illustrated that the competitve scramble for scarce modern jobs has created a "backwash effect" on the quality of education in Third World countries. The solutions are surveyed as they have been effected in the systems of Tanzania, Cuba, Sri Lanka, and China to bring the schools back to their task of educating. (Editor/MSE)