Whilst, many believe that non-academic subjects such as physical education and cookery, should be removed from the school syllabus I disagree, the presence of these subjects is crucial to the success and mental well being of students.
Firstly, in many academically inclined regions such as south-east Asia, there is a lot of parental pressure on students to succeed academically, maybe the parent’s own visions of a grandeur life are being forced upon their children. Furthermore, this pressure can sometimes evolve into forcing the children, to study so much so that they lose focus of their own well being and mental health. Consequently, non-academic subjects such as physical education can be a way out of this excruciating pressure to a path of relaxation while succeeding academically. Personally, I have experienced the same, till grade 9 we used to have a games period bi-weekly in school, during which we got to play our game of choice outdoors. But, as we progressed further into our studies in grade 10, this games period vanished from our time table only to be replaced by more academic periods.
Conversely, the western education solves this problem very successfully, for example, In high Schools in Canada, you can choose from a wide variety of subjects from advanced Math to Drama and it is in the purview of the student as to what he or she wants to pursue. Therefore, giving the student the final say in home much academic burden he or she wants to undertake.
In Conclusion, academic burden is subjective to a specific student and he or she should have the final choice in how many academic and non-academic subjects they want to undertake. Therefore, regions such as South Asia could benefit from adopting a similar system to western countries, by giving this choice to the student.