In today’s rapidly evolving world, some nations have implemented compulsory community activities for younger generations, involving children aged 16 to 18 do charity work, help old people or work with animals. While such activities contribute significantly to improving young people’s essential skills, I believe that these programs have a negative impact on children’s academic performance.
One primary benefit of these programs is that children can gain valuable experiences about various aspects of life, enabling them to apply such experiences in their personal and professional lives. As a result, young people can achieve various accomplishments in their future lives. Another advantage is children can develop their essential skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, leadership, teamworking and communication skills, thereby bringing about positive outcomes for young people. For instance, working with animals can enhance students’ awareness of the environment while gaining detailed information about animals, which can help deeper their understanding of biology science. Thus, such activities can act as a solid foundation, which set children on the path of personal and professional growth.
On the other hand, one potential drawback of these programs is that they leave children with limited opportunities to study, particularly they need to study hard to entrance university, leading to serious health problems such as stress. This negatively reduces students’ productivity and influences their academic performance. Another disadvantage is children cannot participate in other important activities such as exercising and socializing with their friends, resulting in a decline in the quality of life and depression. As an example, studies shows that overreliance on working in such activities deprives children of studying and engaging in various activities such as go to gym, ultimately leading to health problems such as stress and depression. Hence, the stress of limited time and having limited recreational activities are the main disadvantages of these programs.
To sum up, from my perspective, while mandatory community activities can help children cultivate their crucial abilities and gain real life experiences, they can place a burden on their academic performance and lead to serious health issues. Therefore, a balanced approach about such programs and other important activities is required to achieve pleasurable outcomes.