Why China's Double Reduction Policy got it right

[BLueRibbon]

In this article, I contrast China's Double Reduction Policy - aimed at reducing academic pressure on children - with the policies of neighboring Korea, which quite clearly doesn't give a fuck.

https://www.brianribbon.com/home/why-ch ... t-it-right

[example]

I pretty much absolutely agree with the principle but think that the practice doesn’t go far enough. Education should not be based on academic success or used as glorified “daycare”. Instead, it should focus on the interests of the learner themselves, who should ideally be able to set their own schedules and learning goals, and never be ‘locked’ or required to go to a single place to learn by their parents or the state, something China still does.

Long version: A coercive education system is one in which every person between two preset ages:

-is legally required to be enrolled in a place of education (‘school’) by or under auspicien of parents or the state;
-is at least at the place they are enrolled in receive education, coerced by other people (teachers, principal) to participate in ‘educational’ programmes organized by these people or others, regardless of the person’s interests or prior experience with the matter;
-is deprived of any major choice in at least daily schedule and method of learning.
Such systems of education have at least shown to be inherently harmful to the mental health of young people, who are often stressed out by the pressure that such systems inherently give: they have to check if all people between the ‘school age’ are participating in the system, something that is often done via required tests and attendance reports, dehumanizing the individual person and stripping them of any meaningful options. Yes some coercive education systems do allow students to choose which subjects to follow, but this is often A) with many asterisks and B) only offered at specific ages.

Recall or assume beyond this point that every person is able to learn what they’re interested in at the time, konwledge and skill acquired by interest has a better hold than that acquired by brute force, and every person has the ability to decide in which way and pace they want to learn those things they are interested in. This is VERY noticeable in both early and adult education. Given that these statements hold in those cases, they should be able to hold universally and by themselves provide an argument to abolish every law related to coercive education itself, and replace it with a learner-first, free as in Freedom system in which the ‘schools’ of today are converted into playrooms which simply attract kids to them rather than forcing kids to partake in activities. Thus, the learner (regardless of age) is able to partake in any kind of activities for which the resources that are made available, on their own or with anyone else present and willing to partake in the same activity. People should be able to move not only to and from, but also between such facilities safely as they desire, and ideally these are run exclusively by private non-profits with government support. As a final requirement for such a system, any kind of parental coercion should be absolutely forbidden and this ban actively enforced via a hotline and random patrols.

[BLueRibbon]

I pretty much absolutely agree with the principle but think that the practice doesn’t go far enough. Education should not be based on academic success or used as glorified “daycare”. Instead, it should focus on the interests of the learner themselves, who should ideally be able to set their own schedules and learning goals, and never be ‘locked’ or required to go to a single place to learn by their parents or the state, something China still does.

Long version: A coercive education system is one in which every person between two preset ages:

-is legally required to be enrolled in a place of education (‘school’) by or under auspicien of parents or the state;
-is at least at the place they are enrolled in receive education, coerced by other people (teachers, principal) to participate in ‘educational’ programmes organized by these people or others, regardless of the person’s interests or prior experience with the matter;
-is deprived of any major choice in at least daily schedule and method of learning.
Such systems of education have at least shown to be inherently harmful to the mental health of young people, who are often stressed out by the pressure that such systems inherently give: they have to check if all people between the ‘school age’ are participating in the system, something that is often done via required tests and attendance reports, dehumanizing the individual person and stripping them of any meaningful options. Yes some coercive education systems do allow students to choose which subjects to follow, but this is often A) with many asterisks and B) only offered at specific ages.

Recall or assume beyond this point that every person is able to learn what they’re interested in at the time, konwledge and skill acquired by interest has a better hold than that acquired by brute force, and every person has the ability to decide in which way and pace they want to learn those things they are interested in. This is VERY noticeable in both early and adult education. Given that these statements hold in those cases, they should be able to hold universally and by themselves provide an argument to abolish every law related to coercive education itself, and replace it with a learner-first, free as in Freedom system in which the ‘schools’ of today are converted into playrooms which simply attract kids to them rather than forcing kids to partake in activities. Thus, the learner (regardless of age) is able to partake in any kind of activities for which the resources that are made available, on their own or with anyone else present and willing to partake in the same activity. People should be able to move not only to and from, but also between such facilities safely as they desire, and ideally these are run exclusively by private non-profits with government support. As a final requirement for such a system, any kind of parental coercion should be absolutely forbidden and this ban actively enforced via a hotline and random patrols.

At least for younger students, that would be chaotic and unhelpful.

Children have neither the self-control nor the attention span necessary for such a system to work. Without structure, the current generation of children can't focus even on tasks they enjoy for any length of time.

There are also skills that most children don't want to learn, but really need to learn. With them free to run around as they pleased, those skills would never be developed. Not everything can be learned through play and experience.

For this age group, structure and respectful control is necessary.

For adolescents, greater freedom would have some merit in an ideal world. However, teachers are needed to help and correct even in the absence of a formal lesson. If students are essentially learning at their own pace (using a different book, or a different page in the book, or a different piece of equipment), a much higher ratio of teachers to students is needed. It is essentially tutoring. That is not economically viable unless parents are paying huge sums of money.

The current system, while imperfect, is tuned for economic efficiency. The teacher delivers the same lesson to a large group of students, and helps those who are struggling (in some cases, with an assistant). It's possible for one teacher to manage 30 students alone, and 50 with an assistant.

Your proposal would unfortunately require hiring four or five times the number of teachers, and policymakers would rather throw money at worthless institutions like the Internet Watch Foundation or NCMEC, protecting AI-generated pixels on a screen.

What sounds nice in theory doesn't necessarily work in reality.

And even in private systems, learning is secondary to profit.

[example]

I pretty much absolutely agree with the principle but think that the practice doesn’t go far enough. Education should not be based on academic success or used as glorified “daycare”. Instead, it should focus on the interests of the learner themselves, who should ideally be able to set their own schedules and learning goals, and never be ‘locked’ or required to go to a single place to learn by their parents or the state, something China still does.

Long version: A coercive education system is one in which every person between two preset ages:

-is legally required to be enrolled in a place of education (‘school’) by or under auspicien of parents or the state;
-is at least at the place they are enrolled in receive education, coerced by other people (teachers, principal) to participate in ‘educational’ programmes organized by these people or others, regardless of the person’s interests or prior experience with the matter;
-is deprived of any major choice in at least daily schedule and method of learning.
Such systems of education have at least shown to be inherently harmful to the mental health of young people, who are often stressed out by the pressure that such systems inherently give: they have to check if all people between the ‘school age’ are participating in the system, something that is often done via required tests and attendance reports, dehumanizing the individual person and stripping them of any meaningful options. Yes some coercive education systems do allow students to choose which subjects to follow, but this is often A) with many asterisks and B) only offered at specific ages.

Recall or assume beyond this point that every person is able to learn what they’re interested in at the time, konwledge and skill acquired by interest has a better hold than that acquired by brute force, and every person has the ability to decide in which way and pace they want to learn those things they are interested in. This is VERY noticeable in both early and adult education. Given that these statements hold in those cases, they should be able to hold universally and by themselves provide an argument to abolish every law related to coercive education itself, and replace it with a learner-first, free as in Freedom system in which the ‘schools’ of today are converted into playrooms which simply attract kids to them rather than forcing kids to partake in activities. Thus, the learner (regardless of age) is able to partake in any kind of activities for which the resources that are made available, on their own or with anyone else present and willing to partake in the same activity. People should be able to move not only to and from, but also between such facilities safely as they desire, and ideally these are run exclusively by private non-profits with government support. As a final requirement for such a system, any kind of parental coercion should be absolutely forbidden and this ban actively enforced via a hotline and random patrols.

At least for younger students, that would be chaotic and unhelpful.

Children have neither the self-control nor the attention span necessary for such a system to work. Without structure, the current generation of children can't focus even on tasks they enjoy for any length of time.

There are also skills that most children don't want to learn, but really need to learn. With them free to run around as they pleased, those skills would never be developed. Not everything can be learned through play and experience.

For this age group, structure and respectful control is necessary.

For adolescents, greater freedom would have some merit in an ideal world. However, teachers are needed to help and correct even in the absence of a formal lesson. If students are essentially learning at their own pace (using a different book, or a different page in the book, or a different piece of equipment), a much higher ratio of teachers to students is needed. It is essentially tutoring. That is not economically viable unless parents are paying huge sums of money.

The current system, while imperfect, is tuned for economic efficiency. The teacher delivers the same lesson to a large group of students, and helps those who are struggling (in some cases, with an assistant). It's possible for one teacher to manage 30 students alone, and 50 with an assistant.

Your proposal would unfortunately require hiring four or five times the number of teachers, and policymakers would rather throw money at worthless institutions like the Internet Watch Foundation or NCMEC, protecting AI-generated pixels on a screen.

What sounds nice in theory doesn't necessarily work in reality.

And even in private systems, learning is secondary to profit.

As for the first statement you made, this has been completely disproven by historical and modern-day democratic schools. Those are places in which students have a say in the operation of the school, and have complete control over their learning choices. In fact, this is actually shown to be *more* time-efficient than coercive education: something one learns in years if at all under coercion can be taught in a fraction of that time when the student is intrinsically motivated. This is also exactly how kids learn to stay concentrated on something they do.

As for the second, besides the tie-in to the first, the statement nuances itself. The current generation of kids might seem to have a short attention span, but in reality they’re quickly bored by something that they don’t find interesting but are still forced to attend, meanwhile people who are intrinsically motivated are known to enter a state of ‘flow’ in which they get lost in what they do. This is a well-known psychological phenomenon.

As for ‘there are skills that one needs to learn but really need to learn’, well can you elaborate a bit further on this? In addition, those are things that one can either discover on their own that they need to learn, get interested in for the sake of learning, or can be persuaded to learn without any kind of coercion, for instance via optional classes that advertise themselves.

Now a little talk about the exact costs of the current coercive education system per se. this can be divided into several parts, not just the teacher hiring.

But let’s start with that first: yes more teachers will be needed in a free education systems, but do all of them want to be paid? For some or many, being with someone they admire or form a bond with is a reward in itself. So beyond-inflation salary rises like what happens with education strike demands today are unlikely to happen plus this is perfect ground for volunteer work.

Secondly are EVERY SINGLE secondary cost created by coercive education. The direct case is that of truancy enforcement which becomes unnecessary and counter-intuitive. So let’s throw that out. (Also a great new pool of people who might want to become teacher-tutors).

Indirect costs, however, are also present, particularly in health care. And those mostly come from stress-related issues and forced ‘labeling’. To explain the first, stress-related syndromes are extremely common in coercive education, and they require immediate attention from medical professionals. I’ve even heard in one case of a student committing suicide, probably because of this. So not only does the increased stress level caused by coercive education (which is btw what China tries to reduce using their Double Reduction policy) lead to an increase in health-related costs, but it costs LIVES. And even a trillion Euros is MUCH less than one human life, let alone many.

The second case of mental health-related costs is that of forced ‘labeling’. To make sure everyone follows the exact same line of learning, which is essential to the “economic efficiency” of coercive education, they are often made to get diagnosed with ADHD, ODD or similar things when they deviate too much off the path set. And this leads to counseling and often medication that is known to cause some people to feel ‘zombified’, as in their emotions and interests are all gone. They can follow better, but they can only follow, not lead their own lives. With the exact same potentially lethal consequences that chronic stress can have. Not to mention the endless list of side effects.

And for any other secondary costs related to the more free education system I proposed, let me state the following. Gratis (free-cost) rail and bus transit was once seen as a pipe dream as well. Luxembourg proved those who stated that ‘free transit’ is impossible or has disasterous side-effects wrong. Not only does it work but get combined with improvements of the quality of public transit. All because the government was willing to invest in it instead of funding billionaire CEOs and “charities”.

[BLueRibbon]

As for the first statement you made, this has been completely disproven by historical and modern-day democratic schools. Those are places in which students have a say in the operation of the school, and have complete control over their learning choices. In fact, this is actually shown to be *more* time-efficient than coercive education: something one learns in years if at all under coercion can be taught in a fraction of that time when the student is intrinsically motivated. This is also exactly how kids learn to stay concentrated on something they do.

If you're going to state that something has been "completely disproven", as opposed to merely criticized by alternative theories, you need to provide evidence.

As for the second, besides the tie-in to the first, the statement nuances itself. The current generation of kids might seem to have a short attention span, but in reality they’re quickly bored by something that they don’t find interesting but are still forced to attend, meanwhile people who are intrinsically motivated are known to enter a state of ‘flow’ in which they get lost in what they do. This is a well-known psychological phenomenon.

No. The current generation of children cannot focus on anything whatsoever for more than 10 or 15 minutes, including things they elected to do. Sports activities, phone games, videos, whatever. They have no attention span unless they are forced to pay attention. It's an absolute catastrophe.

As for ‘there are skills that one needs to learn but really need to learn’, well can you elaborate a bit further on this? In addition, those are things that one can either discover on their own that they need to learn, get interested in for the sake of learning, or can be persuaded to learn without any kind of coercion, for instance via optional classes that advertise themselves.

Grammatical rules, mathematical formulas, etc. Kids need to learn them, but they won't choose to. This is where coercive education is a necessity.

But let’s start with that first: yes more teachers will be needed in a free education systems, but do all of them want to be paid? For some or many, being with someone they admire or form a bond with is a reward in itself. So beyond-inflation salary rises like what happens with education strike demands today are unlikely to happen plus this is perfect ground for volunteer work.

Volunteers typically work for short periods of time under lax supervision. Granted, that isn't always the case, but overall you're not going to get the same consistent quality of instruction. Most people are not motivated by goodness; they are unreliable unless incentivized.

Secondly are EVERY SINGLE secondary cost created by coercive education. The direct case is that of truancy enforcement which becomes unnecessary and counter-intuitive. So let’s throw that out. (Also a great new pool of people who might want to become teacher-tutors).

I don't think truancy enforcement is a significant expense in government budgets.

Indirect costs, however, are also present, particularly in health care. And those mostly come from stress-related issues and forced ‘labeling’. To explain the first, stress-related syndromes are extremely common in coercive education, and they require immediate attention from medical professionals. I’ve even heard in one case of a student committing suicide, probably because of this. So not only does the increased stress level caused by coercive education (which is btw what China tries to reduce using their Double Reduction policy) lead to an increase in health-related costs, but it costs LIVES. And even a trillion Euros is MUCH less than one human life, let alone many.

Whether you agree or disagree with psychiatry, it is not that common (and therefore not a major expense) outside of the western world.

The second case of mental health-related costs is that of forced ‘labeling’. To make sure everyone follows the exact same line of learning, which is essential to the “economic efficiency” of coercive education, they are often made to get diagnosed with ADHD, ODD or similar things when they deviate too much off the path set. And this leads to counseling and often medication that is known to cause some people to feel ‘zombified’, as in their emotions and interests are all gone. They can follow better, but they can only follow, not lead their own lives. With the exact same potentially lethal consequences that chronic stress can have. Not to mention the endless list of side effects.

Again, this is very much a western thing.

And for any other secondary costs related to the more free education system I proposed, let me state the following. Gratis (free-cost) rail and bus transit was once seen as a pipe dream as well. Luxembourg proved those who stated that ‘free transit’ is impossible or has disasterous side-effects wrong. Not only does it work but get combined with improvements of the quality of public transit. All because the government was willing to invest in it instead of funding billionaire CEOs and “charities”.

What you're proposing is more akin to a free taxi service for the public. Free rail and bus transit is equivalent to standard education systems.

[example]

If you're going to state that something has been "completely disproven", as opposed to merely criticized by alternative theories, you need to provide evidence.

Ok, I actually did find a set of evidence documents just browsing the web about democratic education, and one person in particular who has many great research articles about the subject is Peter Gray. Website www.petergray.org

No. The current generation of children cannot focus on anything whatsoever for more than 10 or 15 minutes, including things they elected to do. Sports activities, phone games, videos, whatever. They have no attention span unless they are forced to pay attention. It's an absolute catastrophe.

That is yet another big bold statement to make that needs some kind of evidence.

Grammatical rules, mathematical formulas, etc. Kids need to learn them, but they won't choose to. This is where coercive education is a necessity.

Well okay, you kind-of got this one. But repeating your statement to argue for it is a logical fallacy. In actual counterargument is one specific source from Peter Gray:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog ... es-to-read
And in addition to that, I personally experienced coercive education taking the fun and interest OUT of something I used to love. I learned to read at ~age 3-4, and since then read through pages and pages of books I found interesting… until in secondary school I had to read books for a reading list and summary as an imposed assignment. This practically slowly made my interest in books fade away, as I associated them with ‘school’. Only just now do I start getting the fun back in reading, if that’s even POSSIBLE for some people. Such lowering of interest can be extremely dangerous as it might be a potential factor in low attention spans.

Volunteers typically work for short periods of time under lax supervision. Granted, that isn't always the case, but overall you're not going to get the same consistent quality of instruction. Most people are not motivated by goodness; they are unreliable unless incentivized.

That is true for many kinds of volunteer work, but I do have to state that if your volunteer work leads to relationships with the people you work with, it becomes way harder to even justify stopping. For instance, this is why it’s possible for many elderly care centers to rely on volunteer work.

I don't think truancy enforcement is a significant expense in government budgets.

Ok yes, I do agree with you. I just came up with it in the moment.

Whether you agree or disagree with psychiatry, it is not that common (and therefore not a major expense) outside of the western world.

Another one which might be true depending on how you read it. I thought it implied that things like depression are not that common outside of the Western world. And besides, I am as of now talking from a Western perspective.

What you're proposing is more akin to a free taxi service for the public. Free rail and bus transit is equivalent to standard education systems.

Possibly the wiredest statement I came across. Even some kids I met in person compared coercive education to a prison. And that is because effectively, it is (just not for 24/7). Except even worse. Kids who didn’t do anything wrong are forced to follow a given program and are legally not allowed to escape from it. And so this is incomparable to public transit, which one chooses to take to the destination they want to go to. So I’d compare a free (as in freedom) education system more to public transit given both are a service to the user, and a coercive education system more to a low-security jail given both are imposed restrictions.

[BLueRibbon]

Ok, I actually did find a set of evidence documents just browsing the web about democratic education, and one person in particular who has many great research articles about the subject is Peter Gray. Website www.petergray.org

Sure, but he's just one person. His articles don't "completely disprove" anything, but I will take a look at his ideas and give them some consideration.

No. The current generation of children cannot focus on anything whatsoever for more than 10 or 15 minutes, including things they elected to do. Sports activities, phone games, videos, whatever. They have no attention span unless they are forced to pay attention. It's an absolute catastrophe.

That is yet another big bold statement to make that needs some kind of evidence.

Much like you sourced from a single person's experience, I am sourcing from my own experience, and from conversations with my co-workers who have noticed the same changes. I don't claim our anecdotes to entirely prove or disprove anything, however.

I've been teaching for many years, and for much of that time children remained broadly consistent. However, in the past few years - whether due to the trauma of the pandemic, parental coddling, or the rise of short-form media (or a combination of those things) - there has been a massive shift in behavior.

Children can't plan anything effectively, nor stick to whatever they start doing. They will ask their friends, or myself, to do an informal activity with them, and then just not show up. They will start a sports match and then give up after 10 minutes. They decide everything is too tiring, or unpleasant for whatever reason, or they just want to do something else for 10 minutes and then forget whatever they were doing before. Yes, children have always had such tendencies, but it's now at a truly alarming extreme. Unless an adult has formally organized an activity for them for a set period of time, they won't focus for more than a fleeting moment if they even show up at all.

Yesterday, one of my favorite students messaged me asking me to go back to school to play with them (sharing contact details with students is completely normal here). I declined. As a MAP. It's dizzying how disorganized and unfocused they are.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog ... es-to-read
And in addition to that, I personally experienced coercive education taking the fun and interest OUT of something I used to love. I learned to read at ~age 3-4, and since then read through pages and pages of books I found interesting… until in secondary school I had to read books for a reading list and summary as an imposed assignment. This practically slowly made my interest in books fade away, as I associated them with ‘school’. Only just now do I start getting the fun back in reading, if that’s even POSSIBLE for some people. Such lowering of interest can be extremely dangerous as it might be a potential factor in low attention spans.

Doing something for work, or for an assignment, can make you lose your love for it. That's a general life truth. But the teacher can't be expected to read whatever book each individual student has chosen in order to mark their report. It's not realistic.

That is true for many kinds of volunteer work, but I do have to state that if your volunteer work leads to relationships with the people you work with, it becomes way harder to even justify stopping. For instance, this is why it’s possible for many elderly care centers to rely on volunteer work.

In reality, though, volunteer teaching is generally the domain of backpackers teaching EFL for a few months in some far-flung paradisaical destination.

And besides, I am as of now talking from a Western perspective.

These days, all that I know about the west comes from others. I left as soon as I could. I will just accept that you are better placed to judge how things work in the west.

What you're proposing is more akin to a free taxi service for the public. Free rail and bus transit is equivalent to standard education systems.

Possibly the wiredest statement I came across. Even some kids I met in person compared coercive education to a prison. And that is because effectively, it is (just not for 24/7). Except even worse. Kids who didn’t do anything wrong are forced to follow a given program and are legally not allowed to escape from it. And so this is incomparable to public transit, which one chooses to take to the destination they want to go to. So I’d compare a free (as in freedom) education system more to public transit given both are a service to the user, and a coercive education system more to a low-security jail given both are imposed restrictions.

I was speaking in terms of economic feasibility.

[example]

Ok, I actually did find a set of evidence documents just browsing the web about democratic education, and one person in particular who has many great research articles about the subject is Peter Gray. Website www.petergray.org

Sure, but he's just one person. His articles don't "completely disprove" anything, but I will take a look at his ideas and give them some consideration.

Well, not just one person who talked out of experience. He’s a research PhD who used several (!) primary sources as a basis for his research. That is one incredibly strong argument which may or may not completely disprove, I admit, but it is a strong argument against coercive education.

That is yet another big bold statement to make that needs some kind of evidence.

Much like you sourced from a single person's experience, I am sourcing from my own experience, and from conversations with my co-workers who have noticed the same changes. I don't claim our anecdotes to entirely prove or disprove anything, however.

I've been teaching for many years, and for much of that time children remained broadly consistent. However, in the past few years - whether due to the trauma of the pandemic, parental coddling, or the rise of short-form media (or a combination of those things) - there has been a massive shift in behavior.

Children can't plan anything effectively, nor stick to whatever they start doing. They will ask their friends, or myself, to do an informal activity with them, and then just not show up. They will start a sports match and then give up after 10 minutes. They decide everything is too tiring, or unpleasant for whatever reason, or they just want to do something else for 10 minutes and then forget whatever they were doing before. Yes, children have always had such tendencies, but it's now at a truly alarming extreme. Unless an adult has formally organized an activity for them for a set period of time, they won't focus for more than a fleeting moment if they even show up at all.

Yesterday, one of my favorite students messaged me asking me to go back to school to play with them (sharing contact details with students is completely normal here). I declined. As a MAP. It's dizzying how disorganized and unfocused they are.

That might be true today, but that doesn’t mean not having any way to solve this.
In fact, the COVID pandemic and associated lockdown might be traumatic to many a kid who suddenly had to stay at home, and I found a research suggesting that PTSD and reduced attention span might be connected in that there exists a correlation between reduced attention span and PTSD:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10476007/
Though we don’t know much of anything about COVID-19, and it’s also true that many kids end up spoiled by their parents who are unable to show their true love for their kids due to work-related priorities, and instead use gifts or potentially hazardous media like Cocomelon to keep their kids at rest (ehm… worker shortages, cost of living crisis). AND there is SO much flashing on the news about war that this might also be partly responsible…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog ... es-to-read
And in addition to that, I personally experienced coercive education taking the fun and interest OUT of something I used to love. I learned to read at ~age 3-4, and since then read through pages and pages of books I found interesting… until in secondary school I had to read books for a reading list and summary as an imposed assignment. This practically slowly made my interest in books fade away, as I associated them with ‘school’. Only just now do I start getting the fun back in reading, if that’s even POSSIBLE for some people. Such lowering of interest can be extremely dangerous as it might be a potential factor in low attention spans.

Doing something for work, or for an assignment, can make you lose your love for it. That's a general life truth. But the teacher can't be expected to read whatever book each individual student has chosen in order to mark their report. It's not realistic.

I yes, I know the latter part and instead of reading the book itself, often read summaries and small sections of the book I had to read. As for the former one, I don’t know how to argue using or against it without opening a much bigger debate… But I do have to state that if someone has to learn something for a test they didn’t elect to take, they can easily forget what they learnt. Which is another reason why making learning fun instead of stressful is going to be more than worth it.

That is true for many kinds of volunteer work, but I do have to state that if your volunteer work leads to relationships with the people you work with, it becomes way harder to even justify stopping. For instance, this is why it’s possible for many elderly care centers to rely on volunteer work.

In reality, though, volunteer teaching is generally the domain of backpackers teaching EFL for a few months in some far-flung paradisaical destination.

That is of course in current-day reality, and not an argument against per se.

What you're proposing is more akin to a free taxi service for the public. Free rail and bus transit is equivalent to standard education systems.

Possibly the wiredest statement I came across. Even some kids I met in person compared coercive education to a prison. And that is because effectively, it is (just not for 24/7). Except even worse. Kids who didn’t do anything wrong are forced to follow a given program and are legally not allowed to escape from it. And so this is incomparable to public transit, which one chooses to take to the destination they want to go to. So I’d compare a free (as in freedom) education system more to public transit given both are a service to the user, and a coercive education system more to a low-security jail given both are imposed restrictions.

I was speaking in terms of economic feasibility.

I get that now, I didn’t get that when you made the argument. Yes maybe something is economically unfeasible in the near future, but that doesn’t mean one can’t move towards the desired result in slower steps.