Education is an essential part of life, and it should be a starting step for every human’s life. Many say that this learning should be directed towards training for students to work in the future, while others suggest that this knowledge should teach many other valuable life skills. In this essay, I will discuss both these views, and I will then give my honest opinion about it.
A group of people think that the education should be solely focused on preparing students for workforce, and working is an important part of an individual’s life. As the era is progressing, the competition for the best job is increasing, and it is a duty of an educational institute to specifically train their students for that field. As the amount of things to teach, relating to any industry, are many and given time for it is very short, so people prefer that education should only focus on that specific educational material. For example, many of the master’s and bachelor’s level degrees in the USA are now removing non-subject courses from their curriculum, and it is resulting in completion of that degree in a short amount of time.
However, there is another faction of individuals that say that instead of focusing on workforce, the education should be subjected to teach many crucial life skills like how to engage in a conversation, how to be a team player, how to negotiate, and what are the ethics of life, etc. Although these skills are less focused on, but it certainly does not mean that they are of less value because these skills are required in every part of life, including the work. Similarly, if we just ignore these and focus only on work, then their would be no difference between us and a robot. It is exemplified by the fact that the children, who are taught the valuable lessons of communication, teamplay, etc, have always emerged on the top and are more confident, and these are the students that go on to become the leaders of the future.
Overall, both these views have their advantages like focusing on work increases the chances of a person being more competent in their work career, and if the direction of that learning is towards life lessons, then it makes one more confident; it also increases one’s chance of surviving better. What I think is that education should be a mixture of both these aspects, as its purpose is to prepare a student for life, and both these concepts are equal parts of a life.