Band 7+: Q. Education of young people is highly prioritized in many countries. However, educating adults who cannot write or read is even more important and governments should spend more money on this. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

One school of thought suggests that officials should spend their money on educating adults who can not write or read, which is more important than allocating money to educating young people. In my perspective, i agree with this suggestion based on some reasons that are explained in this essay.

On the one hand, proponents of this idea believe that investing money in educating adults who could not write or read could increase the burden on the government’s coffers when this target is hard to learn and achieve the desirable achievements in education due to their hectic work schedules and their priority in earning money to make end meets. As a result, this will put a strain on government coffers, leading to budget deficits, tax hikes, and reduced welfare among others. Secondly, prioritizing money to invest in young people’s education would be more effective due to their cognitive flexibility which helps them learn languages and other subjects rapidly and effectively. Eventually, young children could achieve better academic performance than the elderly with disabilities and become valuable workforces in the future for the country.

However, despite the benefits mentioned above, I believe that prioritizing the elderly’s education is far more significant. First and foremost, this could contribute to economic growth and decrease the unemployment rates among people with disabilities because elderly people could earn more money and easily become qualified for employers’ requirements when they increase their knowledge and expertise in their field. Secondly, this proposal could ease the heavy burden of social assistance on the elderly. For example, in extreme cases like Covid-19, the government spends a huge amount of money to support unemployed people, and this leads to tax hikes on the majority of products. Therefore, educating the elderly who can not write or read could help them find remote jobs and have many opportunities to earn money without relying on social assistance, which eases the burden on the government’s coffers.

In conclusion, although this suggestion could bring several negative outcomes, I would contend that its benefits are more significant.