A more sinister way of looking at this is that the government wants to raise children to be more dependent on an authority figure. So that when they grow up to

A more sinister way of looking at this is that the government wants to raise children to be more dependent on an authority figure. So that when they grow up to become adults they will more naturally defer to authority and the state will have an easier time controlling the population and instituting draconian measures. This goes hand in hand with another commenter where no-one wants to take the responsibility for being wrong and always defers to an "authority figure". Because nobody got blamed for buying IBM.