This is a phrase I used today in a meeting. Education tries to help an individual to become successful in his life by giving him the right tools, habits, attitudes, knowledge and skills he needs to succeed based on what the curriculum thinks are needed. In most cases, these needs are determined by socioeconomic factors like market studies or government driving polices and guidelines. However, if the individual is not competent in any of these skills, there is a tendency in education to force the change and in many cases deform the abilities or potential of the individual. For example, if the market opportunity requires Math competency while the individual does not have it, education tends to either force him to learn it through hard methods (from the individual perspective) or tag him as incompetent with every psychological load such tagging holds.
It is time to focus on student happens when thinking about individual success.