My hunch is attitudes towards teachers in the UK probably correlate fairly closely with how well people did in exams. An issue with instrumental justifications for education is if you don& #39;t do well then you& #39;ve & #39;failed& #39; which is obviously going to cause resentment.

Also as @michael_merrick has pointed out, by making exam results so high stakes for life chances schools in which children & #39;fail& #39; are quite logically resented by those who went to them.

And given finite grades (which is quite right) a LOT of people will feel schools and teachers have failed them. The answer might be:
A. Don& #39;t moralise academic success. Make it clear dignity is inherent.
B. More opportunities for lifelong learning so school isn& #39;t as high stakes

C. Create curriculum of inherent not just instrumentalist worth. Allow pupils who don& #39;t do well in an exam to still feel the subject was interesting and a worthwhile use of their time.

This actually does mean rethinking some of the ways schools work. E g: not good enough to discourage a child from picking a GCSE subject just because they aren& #39;t likely to get a high grade.