Strictly speaking, a person is only a possible or potential worker before he has any labor knowledge and experience, because any productive labor needs corresponding labor knowledge and experience more or less, and the acquisition of labor knowledge and experience must go through certain education or training. In modern society, the basic role of school education in this respect is becoming more and more obvious and important. In modern economic activities, science and technology have become the decisive factor of its effectiveness, but science and technology belong to productive forces in the form of knowledge. Before it is applied to the production process, it is neither specific labor materials nor the inherent quality of workers, but potential productivity. Only by mastering certain scientific and technological knowledge and corresponding labor ability can people become labor elements in productive forces, and only by internalizing scientific and technological knowledge and labor ability into the quality of workers can they be transformed into realistic productive forces.
Education can turn ordinary workers into specialized workers.
In this regard, the role of professional education and vocational education is particularly prominent. Universal education in education, especially compulsory education, is of great significance in the reproduction of workers, mainly to improve the general scientific and cultural level of the whole nation, thus improving the general quality of workers on a large scale. General education trains laborers, which are in essence laborers in the general sense or laborers as labor reserve forces. Specialized education and vocational education in education can further transform ordinary workers into specialized workers in a certain field, a certain industry or even a certain type of work on the basis of general education. This kind of laborer has more direct and realistic significance to economic activities.
Education can promote junior workers to senior workers.
The quality of workers has a process from low level to high level. In modern society, the technical foundation of production is constantly improving, and the production mode and labor technology are constantly innovating, thus constantly putting forward new requirements for the quality of workers, requiring them not only to receive education, but also to receive education continuously. From the concept of lifelong education, workers in modern society must receive lifelong education, including school education, and go back and forth between work and school at regular intervals when necessary. In the past, people's lives were actually divided into two parts. The former part was educated and the latter part worked. Graduation from school means the end of school education. Now, this situation is disappearing. In modern society, education has become a basic means to continuously improve the quality of workers and promote their vertical social mobility.
Education can transform one form of workers into another.
In the self-sufficient individual economic activities in ancient society, labor mainly relied on individual experience, and the accumulation of experience required a long period of exploration and accumulation, coupled with the mutual blockade between industries, it was very difficult for a person to switch from one kind of labor to another. Under such social conditions, it is neither necessary nor possible for workers to change jobs. Modern production is a socialized mass production based on science and technology. The ups and downs of the industry and the ups and downs of the work are ever-changing, which will bring changes to the occupation and work of the workers. In today's society, changing careers and jobs, whether passive or active, has gradually become a common thing. At the same time, because modern production mainly depends on science and technology, as long as workers basically master the general principles of production and technology, they can smoothly transfer from one production department to another, thus transforming one form of workers into another. Therefore, it is both necessary and possible to change the form of workers in modern production. In modern society, education is naturally the basic means to transform the form of workers and promote their horizontal social mobility.
5. Education can turn a one-dimensional worker into a multi-dimensional worker.
The laborer in the traditional and outdated economic sense is almost a pure labor force, a submissive, robust and working tool. This kind of laborer is one-dimensional, and so is its development and demand. Modern economics' understanding of workers has gone beyond the scope of pure economics. Such workers not only have scientific and technological knowledge and labor ability, but also have certain qualities such as cultural literacy, ideological literacy, professional ethics, psychological quality, innovative spirit and cooperative consciousness. Such workers are multidimensional, and so are their development and needs. Multidimensional workers must have a higher realm and level than one-dimensional workers, have a richer spiritual world and stronger labor ability, and their lives will not only be "subordinate to labor" [2]. Many contemporary western scholars emphasize the overall improvement of human labor quality in the sense of modern economics, and fully affirm the role of workers' cultural literacy, spiritual realm and psychological quality in economic activities. Some scholars in China have also noticed the role of irrational factors in the operation of market economy from the economic development in recent years [3]. Education improves the quality of workers in an all-round way, and modern education pays more and more attention to multi-dimensional training of future workers.