“Critically literate citizens are essential for sustaining and maintaining democratic institutions and the freedoms they engender. Education, therefore, should be conceived beyond mere utility, its value for industry. Human beings should be thought of as more than productive units, their complex lives reduced, their status defined as homo economicus. To this end it is crucial to imagine the function of educating young people differently, and to assess the success of education beyond pass rates, passing through school and higher education. To sustain democracy, the success of education should also be reckoned by the longer-term positive outcomes, which include but are not limited to giving citizens of a democratic society the means to make their lives differently and with greater freedom, not just in service of economic goals and outcomes, and beyond individual profit towards the larger goal.”