From Scandinavia to Latin America, education systems face a profound identity crisis. In Sweden, a utilitarian logic has come to dominate higher education, with universities increasingly seen as factories producing graduates for the labour market as quickly and cheaply as possible — a view amplified by both employers and unions. Critics argue this erodes the classical ideal of bildning, or self-cultivation, though they concede that mass education makes it hard to preserve. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the data under the current administration tells a starker story: after nearly a century of steady growth in primary school coverage, the trend has reversed since 2018, with both enrolment and learning outcomes falling sharply. The official narrative of transformation and humanism masks a failure that analysts describe as confusing schooling with education.

Across the Atlantic, Argentina's education system is fraying under similar strains, though from a different angle. Teachers face a bewildering collage of annual regulatory changes, courses, and conflicting demands, leaving them unable to maintain a coherent narrative of their own work. The system's managers, as one observer notes, seem lost in a short-term memory loop, reacting to symptoms rather than addressing root causes. In both countries, the gap between political rhetoric and classroom reality is widening, raising questions about whether governments are willing — or able — to reverse the decline.

Amid these systemic troubles, a quieter but no less significant debate is unfolding about what education is for. The Argentine philosopher Darío Sztajnszrajber argues that philosophy's core purpose is to question the logic of utility that dominates modern existence, where performance and profitability trump all other values. This echoes a global call for classrooms to rediscover the art of questioning, central to intellectual growth since Socrates. Yet in many schools, questioning is reduced to a perfunctory check after lessons, rather than a method of deep inquiry. The tension between the factory model and the Socratic ideal has never been sharper.

Viewed from a global perspective, these crises share a common thread: the erosion of education's humanistic foundations under the weight of economic and bureaucratic pressures. Mexico's regression in coverage, Argentina's teacher burnout, Sweden's narrow vocationalism, and the neglect of philosophical questioning all point to a system that has lost sight of its purpose. Reversing this trend will require not just policy changes, but a renewed commitment to the idea that education is about forming whole persons capable of critical thought — an ideal that no factory logic can deliver.