Band 5+: Some people think that schools should focus on teaching students practical skills, such as financial management and cooking, rather than traditional academic subjects. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Several individuals think that schools should be centered on practical skills such as financial management and cooking than being old fashioned one. This essay totally agrees with the idea that schools ought to be practical. First, students will have an insight to the real, outside world. Second, it becomes more enjoyable for them.

As we know, formal education and real world challenges are floating apart from each other. As a result, many students struggle to fit into the world especially after graduation. On the other hand, pupils who get to learn and master these practical skills have it easy when they go out to the world as they have acquired important set of skills needed to solve difficulties they face. For example, a study was conducted in the UK in 2020 which showed that 73% of students who completed their study mainly through the “old fashioned” way struggled to get a job while those who did graduate through interactive learning were successful in securing their job 80% of the time in this research. This clearly indicates how the old formal way of learning is becoming more and more separate to the point that its not helping graduates to have an insight to the outside world.

On the other hand, some individuals also say it’s equally important to balance them both but, this is not the case as most people graduating after taking certain courses do not utilize most of courses they take in their job. For example, some one who graduates and becomes a merchant doesn’t need the knowledge of biology, chemistry or physics as his job mainly depends on mathematics or logic if necessary. We can take an actual example of individuals for example, a well-known millionaire, Gelana Desalegn, who enrolled medicine but, now working on app development and space science. This shows us most of the things learnt in school are of no use when students go out to the world.

Generally, educational institutions should focus more on acquired skills which are gained through practice rather than teaching students unnecessary theories as the old fashioned way of learning as they will have difficulties to adopt and strive in the real world.