For essentially historical reasons, the subjects of traditional curricula are given a value that often bears little relation to their educative or social usefulness. Literature and history are generally invested with greater prestige than geography or economics, and the study of classics takes precedence over learning about the contemporary world. Even science as a whole suffers from such prejudice: pure science is often more highly regarded than applied science. Many educational programmes are therefore ill-adapted to provide knowledge of the real universe, as the present generation sees it, and to the problems facing people today: military, social and racial conflicts; worldwide famine; pollution; the status of youth and women; and the condition of minority groups. Educators may feel that they do not possess sufficiently accurate information on these subjects, or they may wish to avoid controversial subjects, or the subjects may require multidisciplinary treatment which would be hard to include in strictly subject-based timetables. Furthermore, the unwillingness to recognize that curriculum goes beyond compartments of subject matter hinders the development of non-formal efforts to make schooling more responsive to the real life needs of persons of all ages

No educational institution or informal educational system today equips people with techniques to plan and act toward their community, toward their nation or toward the world. This is reflected in the massive disquiet seen among workers, students, parents and teachers alike. In many developing countries, especially former colonies, education dominated by imported values and systems, has no relevance to the local or national needs. In fact, in many countries, there is no social education at all. The so-called education is directed towards producing graduates who are insipid, devoid of roots in their own culture and socially useless. Education today is geared towards a materialistic life style characterized by ever increasing sophistication and extravagance. It is producing tensions, strain and exhaustion even among the relatively affluent section of the people in their pursuit of the means to afford the consumption standards required by this life style. In the resultant competition, those who cannot afford, and therefore, cannot satisfy their needs, basic or imaginary, have little time or patience to think in terms of duty towards community, nation or world. This is even less so for the vast majority of poor whose major concern is food while clothing and shelter occupy only second and third place in their priorities