Motivated by a lecture from Harvard professor Michael Sandel on his recent book The Tyranny of Merit (2022), I revisited the satire by Michael Young The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958) in which this historical retrospective sub-titled An Essay on Education and Equality, projects the author into the year 2033 to describes the impact of meritocratic education on contemporary society. Young’s position is that meritocracy provides a system of social, political and economic organisation enabling the elite classes to benefit while falsely promising the non-elite groups that intelligence and effort alone will lead them towards upward social mobility. While still a matter of debate (Sandel, 2020; Lauder, 2022) Young’s thesis is regarded as a key concept in 20th Century thinking around education (Civil & Himsworth, 2020).

However, the concept of life-long learning or life-time education does not figure. Indeed the older adults are included in the satire to suggest experience and entitlement over merit. “The rights of the old did not have to be publicly acclaimed, they were so widely taken for granted” [1958: p. 86]. Respect for age was the rule of society, experience was vastly over-estimated. As the number of older adults increased, so retirement age was raised to 70, then to 80, with those waiting in the promotion queue seeing their prospects darken. Young does not consider that further education and upskilling was a possibility, rather that reconciliation to demotion was an accepted part of remaining in the labour market. “They were terrified by the cry of ‘too old’ at 40…feared by all except the outstanding brilliant whom no-age barrier could halt” [1958: p. 90]. And in a flourish, which even in a satire would be questionable to today’s readership, our author declares “old men at their meetings do not seem so much at odds with vivid young girls on the platform”. The position of women or vivid young girls being solved by education for both sexes – even if it meant highly educated domestic servants… the concept of women returning to the home as carers continuing until at least 2033 being one of the more limited visualization of the book.

If race and gender form a key part of the meritocracy debate, why not age? Yet neither Sandel (2020) nor by the excellent overview by Woolridge The Aristocracy of Talent (2021) consider the role of life-time education. While Sandel does suggest that the acceptable face of meritocracy would include “a broad equality of condition that enables those who do not achieve great wealth or prestigious positions to live lives of decency and dignity – develo** and exercising their abilities ….sharing in widely differing cultures of learning, and deliberating with their fellow citizens about public affairs” (2020:224) (my emphaisis), he does not continue to examine how this might be achieved, and especially achieved across the life course. Similarly Woolridge, who fears that the current “decay of something as vital as the meritocratic spirit can doom an entire civilization” (2021: p. 397) calls for an upgrading of vocational training to redefine success – but seemingly not across the life course.

This is however taken up in a recent wide ranging paper by Regmi (2023) entitled Meritocratic Lifelong Learning. While the main focus of the analytical component of this paper is on lower and middle income countries, and the neocolonial contract, Regmi provides a clear case for integrating life-time, and not just early years education, into the Meritocratic debate. Pointing out that life-long learning has become a new focus of policy development following the declaration of life-long learning as Sustainable Development Goal 4, he considers whether the investment of time and resources needed for it should be the responsibility of individuals or institutions.

The Council of Europe, UNESCO and the OECD have long accepted life-long education as an essential component for mitigating the limitation of early years formal education for everyone irrespective of their age, gender or ethnicity. This has in more recent years turned to include the role of increasing economic competitiveness in knowledge economies, particularly through input from the EU and World Bank (World Bank, 2002, 2003, 2011, 2018). Regmi asks how meritocratic assumptions have influenced this discourse, arguing that the vision of life-long learning needs to include social, cultural, economic, and spiritual development, collective wellbeing and collaboration, develo** the life-skills required for addressing problems of hunger and poverty, and enabling all to fulfil social roles such as familial commitments, respect of cultures and identity, and relationship building. We may suggest that with the threat of rising populism, the challenge of climate change, ever more novel technological encounters, and new global political and military alignments, these are the building blocks of the new 21st Century. A meritocracy built on education and learning for all across the life course, will be needed to provide people of all ages the means to navigate and flourish in this new world.