As I see it, our current model of education is flawed. For starters, it's compulsory, and we have an innate repulsion to anything forced upon us. Hence, very few people end their schooling with actually learning anything beyond basic literacy. Secondly, the teachers themselves are the same brainwashed incompetent people their students later turn into. It's the epitome of blind leading the blind.

Another, a more "philosophical", aspect is then that the way we perceive reality is itself based upon illusion -- no one perceives e.g. photons directly, we cognate mind constructs. Thus, the self-deception is build in our system from the get go. Belief, and its particular forms, are then the consequences. Of course, anyone can walk out of the shadow cave, if they so desire.