So we don't really have an education system in the UK (or the US): we have an induction system.

A bit of both, wouldn't you say? Whether it's "education" or "induction" probably depends on what part of the liberal arts/hard science spectrum the student is placed. If you really want to be an engineer or a doctor, for example, then there are certain hard facts you have to assimilate. If you don't assimilate them then you build an unsafe bridge or kill a patient. And - yes - a good university education is more than knowledge. It can develop better social skills, better research skills, etc.

Because of the changes to the ways in which students are funded in the UK - with more students paying their own fees - there's an increasing tendency to treat students as "customers" or "clients". They're paying, so runs the mantra, therefore they can pick and choose this and that - and demand this and that. However, there's a subtle difference between a customer with money to spend in a shop and a student with money to spend on a university course: knowledge. If I walk into a shop to buy a TV, the sales assistant can advise me until he's blue in the face. I may know absolutely nothing about TVs but, because I have the money, I can buy what I want. I can make a wise purchase or a stupid one. My choice. A budding student, however, doesn't know what he/she doesn't know - and there's a huge difference there. The student, in many cases, can't pick and choose what to learn or what not to learn. There's a curriculum to be gone through - a curriculum, in very many cases, which is regulated by professional bodies outside the university itself. I've sat on enough course validation committees to know the complications that this can bring to the process.