Why we must disestablish school --
Phenomenology of school --
Ritualization of progress --
Institutional spectrum --
Irrational consistencies --
Learning webs --
Rebirth of epimethean man.

Schools have failed our individual needs, supporting false and misleading notions of "progress" and development fostered by the belief that ever-increasing production, consumption and profit are proper yardsticks for measuring the quality of human life. Our universities have become recruiting centres for the personnel of the consumer society, certifying citizens for service, while at the same time disposing of those adjudged unfit for the competitive rat race. In this bold and provocative book, Illich suggests some radical and exciting reforms for the education system. The measures suggested in Deschooling Society, he argues, aare necessary to turn civilization from its headlong rush towards the violence which frustrated expectations will certainly unleash so long as the school myth is allowed to persist