Having our cake and eating it too
I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma at a time when it was not completely unexpected to see horses used to pull wagons and plows. These horses were fitted with a head harness that placed leather shields next to their eyes that prevented the horse from seeing to the side. The horse was blinded to anything but straight ahead, and thus they were not distracted by anything but doing their job; pulling the wagon or plow.
Our educational system is designed to produce graduates who are prepared to do a job. Mental blinders are set in place such that the graduates do not waste time looking to the left or to the right, but look straight ahead at doing their job. This is what industry wants and this is what graduates of schools and colleges are prepared to do. Perhaps this is necessary.
Perhaps, however, we can have our cake and eat it too. If our graduates recognize that they are not prepared, after graduation, to become critical minded independent thinking personalities they can set about immediately upon graduation to preparing them self for that role. After they have gotten their job they can devote a small amount of their time to becoming that critical minded and independent thinking personality.
I suggest that one of the important things that they might usefully do after graduation is fill in that vast area of ignorance left by our vocational institutions of education; they might usefully start reading history and studying Critical Thinking. History will give them a comprehension of how our society arrived at its present position and CT (Critical Thinking) will prepare them for learning how to think and to make good judgments.