This essay aims to explore the perks and disadvantages of High Schools attendants exploring the labor world besides their academic responsibilities.
Nowadays, the working place evolves constantly and rapidly, a tendency that does not always reflect on an academic evolution. Unfortunately, recent reports on secondary schools around the world (including 73 countries) often suggest that the teaching dynamics, evaluating systems and technological tools used inside the classroom are decades behind. Without doubt, this has a worrying impact on the skills that recent graduates might develop to insert themselves into the working world.
In this scenario, making teenagers have experiences in different companies or organisations might seem like the perfect solution. However, the data shows that, after a trimester of attending at least 12 hours a week to a working place, 75% of students felt that the experience was nothing but “a waste of their time”. As they were requested to perform repetitive and often considered “inutile” tasks, feeling that no skills or abilities were taught to them during these practices. The reported tasks included: preparing coffee, arranging the work space or destroying antiques paperwork.
Conclusively, while there is no doubt that getting involved in enterprises, ONGs or any other working environment would be a nourishing experience for all near-to-be graduates, it should be closely monitored by the academic responsables to make sure that the tasks correlates with the academic formation students receive and actually reflects a challenging task to prepare young people for the working world without exposing them as a cheap (or even free) labor force to get benefit from.