If you accept that what really means the sentence "the good of the country" is "the good of all the people of the country" , something that, by the way, it seems we have forgotten lately, then education by itself is a desired outcome.
Education, good health and, in general, a happy life for all should be the goal, not the means.
Also, in this age, the most important asset is knowledge, because almost anything else can be compensated for with knowledge.
The point is that at some point there is diminishing returns. Findland and Canada scores top characters but aren't the top countries i.e. they don't benefit as countries more than countries with worse education. That's the point I was trying to make.
And I disagree that knowledge is important in the way you seem to talk about it. Knowledge is applying solution to problems yet many problems humans aren't capable of solving alone and thus will need to trust machines to do but that's a whole other discussion :)
Education, good health and, in general, a happy life for all should be the goal, not the means.
Also, in this age, the most important asset is knowledge, because almost anything else can be compensated for with knowledge.