Foreword Every society invests a signiÀcant proportion of its economic resources in educating its youth. Despite the fact that there will usually be no economic return on this investment for at least twelve years after students enter school, there is consensus in most societies among business interests, policymakers, and the wider community regarding the importance of education for ensuring future economic productivity and social stability. The way any society organizes its education system reÁects its current social priorities and the implicit images it continuously constructs of its own future identity. Education is also the gateway to social and economic rewards for individual students and for the social groups they were born into and represent. There is a very substantial (and rapidly increasing) disparity in income between those who graduate from university and those who have obtained only a basic secondary school qualiÀcation. In view of its importance for the future
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