Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. His epigram applies to the way we talk about education nowadays, focusing on what it can do for the economy. That is indeed important, but it does not capture the real value of education. It is almost as if people are afraid of saying education is a good thing in itself. That comes from a loss of confidence in the importance of transmitting a body of knowledge, a culture, ways of thinking, from one generation to the next. It is a crucial obligation we have to the next generation and we are failing to discharge it.

The latest example of this loss of confidence in education is the titles of the departments created by splitting the Department for Education in two. We have the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills and we have the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The key word that is missing in those two lists is education. It is almost as if the government has lost confidence in the value of education, as distinct from other worthwhile aims such as helping families or raising our levels of innovation.

For the government, science is no longer about evidence and reason, it is a lever for increasing productivity. Foreign languages are not a means of appreciating the culture of another people; they are a means of improving trade. Yet people do not become teachers because they aspire to raising the rate of growth; they wish to pass on a love of their subjects. There is a paradox here. If we see education as a way of imparting a body of knowledge, we will do better at the functionalist side of education as well. Like happiness, it can be achieved only as a byproduct of something else.

Real education means real subjects with a history, shape and rigour, together with the intellectual curiosity to challenge and renew them. Our body of knowledge must be rooted in a tradition, but must also be open to questioning. Indeed, what we know changes all the time – when Einstein was at Oxford in the 1930s, he set a physics paper with the same questions for two years running. When his colleagues challenged him, he replied that although the questions were the same the answers were different. That is part of the excitement of intellectual endeavour.

Of course, skills matter too. But often they are best mastered through learning stuff. Look at what has gone wrong with history. We expect school-children to compare different primary sources and learn the analytical tools of the historian, but we will not allow them the sheer excitement of learning what happens next in a narrative history of our own country.

Several subjects now face the vicious spiral of not enough people emerging from university who have studied the subject to provide the teachers to keep it going in schools. We cannot just solve this problem by passing a law or setting yet another target. We need a smarter policy than this that understands the role of a proud profession in living up to its own standards, and the power of choice by parents and students.

There are problems with the national curriculum but even more important is the intricate relationship between the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the examining boards. This is the source of the dumbing down and predictability of exams.

We can look to universities to play a really creative role here. After all, the origins of our exam boards were often in universities, as they tried to assess who should go to them. They are frustrated when A-level grades don’t give them the information they need. We need to harness the experience of universities so as to once more have exams that stretch students.

It means more professional development for teachers. What we need is opportunities for teachers to renew and refresh themselves by linking with local universities. And if there aren’t enough science labs, universities can provide a resource.

We have excellent schools where love of learning is flourishing. But as last week’s report by the Office for Standards in Education revealed, there are too many that fall far short of this. The way forward is not to argue about how to allocate places at a fixed number of good schools. Instead we need more good schools. We must tear down the barriers to creating new ones.

Of course we want productive workers. But more importantly, we want a strong society made up of happy and robust individuals. A real education is the only way to provide that.

David Willetts is the shadow secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth