How to kill a country's education system

Give teachers tenure, so bad ones cannot be dismissed.

Require better students to study longer so they spend their prime years outside the workforce and delay gaining compounding job skills.

Assign responsibility for both education and certification to the same institutions, thereby introducing a significant conflict of interest.

Mandate that all degrees have the same duration so that even students pursuing less complex degrees graduate with substantial debt and considerable opportunity costs.

Hire teachers based on criteria other than their teaching proficiency – for example, their ability to write papers.

Have the government, rather than colleges, provide loans to students so universities have no vested interest in their students' success.

Prohibit students from using tools they will utilize throughout their lives, such as Excel or AI, thereby preventing them from learning how to use these tools effectively.

Publish research exclusively behind paywalls, particularly research that was funded by public money.

Group individuals by birth year irrespective of talent, thereby causing the most capable students to adjust to the pace of the least capable students.

In general, design an education system based on the premise that knowledge is scarce and student time is plentiful, in an era where the inverse is true.