School as a tool of power in Ivan Illich's deschooling society

Education is one of the most important social institutions which forms the personality. Education has many functions like helping one's self-recognition, becoming people socialized, transfrerring the cultural heritage to the next generations, growing people who will contribute to the economic and political development of the society they live in. These are the clear functions of a normal curriculum. Besides it, education has also a hidden curriculum. Powers accept the mentality of "knowledge is power" as the most important motto in modern world and try all ways to have the knowledge. The best way to have the knowledge, power is to take responsibility for distributing the knowledge which means to run the educational institutions. Illich, who criticies the institutions in almost all his books, thinks that the society is governed by institutions and people lost the freedom. According to Illich, industrial society has made human the slave of the instutitions and tools. Being turned into a client, today human are even clients of knowledge and education. As a solution, Illich thinks that not only the institutions ought to be deschooled but also a phiolosophy of life ought to be deschooled. The aim of this study is to show up how the schools are used as a tool of power.