While failure is the mother of success, competition must be the father of improvement. In order to encourage students to improve, schools are getting more competitive than ever before. Some laud its creation of a learning environment that encourages achievement; however, I intend to argue that this competitive atmosphere is detrimental. In this essay, I will explore the rationale of both points of belief and proffer the justification for my own viewpoint.
First of all, it is an undeniable fact that better academic results are the end product of a competitive learning environment. Seeing their classmates getting compliments and certificates, students are motivated to accomplish the same academic achievement. Indeed, they will dedicate more time and effort to studying. Although, in return, schoolers may have better school performance, since investing more time and effort to study is the only key to success, they are putting their health at risk. Spending more time for revision means less time is spent on leisure and physical activities which puts schoolers at a higher risk of having health problems, such as obesity. Even more disturbing, though, is the mental health problem that they might get.
One point that I believe to be absolutely pivotal is that the stress students will get from the competitive environment is enormous. Pupils with lower academic performance might also want to try the taste of achievement; however, they especially those with special education needs, are lost at the starting line. No matter how much time and leisure they sacrificed, they still couldn’t get the results they expected which pushes these students into corners. One particularly salient example of this is the students in Hong Kong. As a result of having a highly competitive education system, at least one student commits suicide every month.
By way of conclusion, although competitions might motivate pupils to achieve better results, I once again reaffirm my position that the education system, nowadays, has put too much stress on schoolers which is detrimental to them physically and psychologically.