Futuretrack 5, Robert Westall
This is a much better YA novel on 'bad education as an implement of dystopia' than
Higher Education. It is clear throughout how the destructive system benefits enough people to keep it stable; the hero-narrator isn't so dim at the beginning that his further education is incredible; and different virtues of many layers of the damaged society get acknowledged.
ISBN: 0-688-02598-6
So wrote clew in
SF&F.