What Is the Function of Educating Individuals in Capitalist Society?

What exactly is the function of educating individuals in our capitalist society? Are we really educated individually, or is the system there simply to churn out a workforce to meet our society's growing needs? I plan to look at the views of this matter from different sociologists' perspectives, and examine the ideas behind the function of education - whether it really is a fair an just system, offering us all the chance to succeed, regardless of our background.
What is education? Is it merely the act, or process of acquiring knowledge? From a sociological perspective, there is a lot more to it. Education can be looked at as a method of socialization - preparing us for life in society, and a system used to sort, sift and grade us on terms of ability. But is education unpretentiously doing this? Or are there factors of inequality to be accounted for?
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