Surprising or not?

This post can be regarded as part two of the previous post, importance of education. I didn't intend to make two post about this subject but a few hours after publishing the previous post I stumbled on an excellent example of our current attitude to education:

You probably wonder why I told that it shows our attitude. The answer is simple - the only way to get such result is to not listen to the teacher.
I don't know if this story is true or not, but it still shows very one of the main problems of the current education system in developed countries. Those who don't want to study will not study, they will simply sit in the classroom. It is so because they don't have real motivation to study, they think that they have all they need now and that they will have all what they need in the future without studying.

In the third world countries the situation is different. The people there see education as a way out of poverty. Also in Japan this problem is solved rather creatively. There you must study until you get a bachelor degree. And unless you have a medical condition that makes impossible or difficult to study, your parents will have to pay fines if your don't do well in school. This system has it own problems, and I am not sure that given the choice I would prefer to study in under such rules. But this is a lesson - there is a way to change people mind about importance of education.