Education without progress: What’s the point?

Is there any point in education if there is no better future to look forward to? This essay addresses this question by distinguishing two different ways of linking education and progress. Firstly, education can be viewed as facilitating social progress in a causal manner. Secondly, the concept of education itself can be considered to encompass some notion of progress. Against this backdrop, the concept of ‘education after progress’ (or ‘postprogressive education’) is examined. Regarding the latter, it is argued that the concept of postprogressive education is meaningless because ‘education’ is inherently ‘progressive’. Furthermore, it is argued that an education for progress is only pointless if the possibility of a normative evaluation of social developments is denied.