Thus it is argued that curriculum is discriminatory and oppressive, and this is at odds with the ideology of informal education and of youth work, as we will discuss. Moreover the oppression and discrimination which curriculum produces is not an unwanted but necessary by-product of education, it is in fact a creation intended to maintain hegemony and power for the rich elite at the expense of the learners liberty. As Illich discusses, `curriculum has always been used to assign social rank` (Illich, 1973: 19), this social rank has changed little in the past centuries, where the majority of education is controlled by curriculum.