Most people are just spoilt and have no particular goals in life. Not just kids. No solid aims or aspirations. Just short term impulses and unnecessary procrastination. Our education system, or overall social system, isn't that great anyway. Come to even think of it, our neighbourhood schools have a poor selection of teachers/lecturers.
But as for any society, it all starts from the individual unit - the family. Behaviours and attitudes are made in there. So I suppose it isn't wrong either to say that most of us do nothing but conform to what's laid before us - that is, the idea that the quick path to success is fixed and usually unquestioned. Then you have peeps ending up in the not so suitable environments they are in. e.g., about 25% of people in Singapore JCs? Just sayin'.
May as well bust your ass doing/learning something you actually like than wasting your life away if you don't wanna work hard enough for it.