Deschooling Society is a 1971 book written by Austrian priest Ivan Illich that critiques the role and practice of education in the modern world.

[1][2] For example, he calls for the use of advanced technology to support "learning webs",[3][4][5][6] which incorporate "peer-matching networks", where descriptions of a person's activities and skills are mutually exchanged for the education that they would benefit from.

[7] Illich argued that, with an egalitarian use of technology and a recognition of what technological progress allows, it would be warranted to create decentralized webs that would support the goal of a truly equal educational system:[8] A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.

We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education—and also to those who seek alternatives to other established service industries.

Thus, Illich's envisioned disestablishment of schools aimed not to establish a free market in educational services, but to attain a fundamental shift: a deschooled society.