Firs of all, I’m really thankful to El General Failure for a post where he mentioned me. However, I could say at least as many good things about him, as he wrote about me.
But moving forward, if you ask any Spaniard what are we good at, the most likely answers are: football, food, and party. Now, if you ask that same Spaniard if we need education to be good at those areas, the most likely answer is no. Both answers are completely wrong.
Our exports, what we are good at compared to other countries, are cars and car parts, medicines, and products derived from the petroleum. And without doubt, we need exceptional education to remain competitive in those sectors. Moreover, we also need to improve our education in order to keep being proud of our sport teams, chefs, and tourism.
Why am I talking about education? Well, for once I attended classes at three different countries, amounting to more than a dozen educational centers total.
The education in Spain isn’t bad at all, but it also isn’t as good as it should. I could write a lot about my bad experiences in the field, but it wouldn’t be fair as I also had superb teachers during all this time at public institutions. So rather that targeting the bad side of it, here are 23 ways of improving education in your country, state, and school:

1. This is essential: Create a system that produces critical people: critical with the world, but also self-critical, otherwise the whole system is failing.
2. Decrease the number of students per classroom: the ideal number is between 15 and 25, politicians who support a class size larger than that are attacking our future.
3. Let specialists choose the contents and the distribution of the courses. And never, ever, create a system that indoctrinates people in your sectarian ideas.
4. The government has to economically support responsible students living independently by the age of 18.
5. Keep public education 100% free by stopping subsidizing unproductive sectors, spending taxpayers’ money in guns, bailing out irresponsible banks, etc.
6. Foster a positive stereotype of researchers through mass media.
7. Use the mass media to change the social norms, ie: ridicule ignorant attitudes.
8. Make it possible to spend educational time in your hobbies.
9. Make it mandatory for students to at least plan on how to create a company by the time they are done with high-school.
10. Bilinguals are no longer enough: Multilingual people are better prepared for working and enjoying life.
11. Make it mandatory to broadcast foreign media in its original language (this includes cinema, TV, radio, video-games, magazines, etc).
12. Make it easy and clear to become a researcher. For instance, email students once a month and tell them what your department is doing and how they can join you.
13. Filter teachers as much as possible: in some Scandinavians countries teachers need to have the best marks, but also do some kind of social work in their spare time, speak several languages, and so on.
14. Filter students as much as possible: if you don’t program in your spare time by the time you are done with high-school you shouldn’t be accepted in the computer science school. However, let people choose whether they are ready to decide or not.
15. Teachers should be as accessible as any student: you aren’t god just because you are at the top. Actually, chances are that your students are brighter than you are.
16. Students should act in a responsible way: they must be accountable when they fail, but you also must find the root of the problem as early as possible, in the sense that a single student failing means the whole system is failing.
17. Teachers: reward students when they do good, and giving a good mark is not a reward.
18. Students: reward teachers who do good, and propose improvements to not so good teachers in a constructive way.
19. Take into account the opinions of students and staff: make them participate in your school. Don’t know how? No problem, ask Le Nouvel Ingénieur.
20. Teachers teach, researchers research, people who do both are remarkable at neither.
21. Students, however, must learn, discover, experience, reflect, and undertake.
22. Make companies collaborate with schools, specially when it comes to funding and commercializing research.
23. Create jobs for those who study humanities: they must direct our societies, instead of working at fast food chains.

After all this is implemented, all our citizens will be brilliant people. So employers will look more and more at the side activities we do in our spare time: learning another language, carrying out personal projects, and be active will be extremely valuable both at life and work.