Dear Members/Moderators,

I would appreciate if you can review my issue essay and share your feedback.

Issue:"Schools should be responsible only for teaching academic skills and not for teaching ethical and social values."

Essay:

Schools play a very important role in today's world. In today's dynamic world where people live almost by hour the role that schools play becomes even more crucial. In this challenging world, where parents find it more and more difficult to spend quality time with their children and children spend more time at school than at home, it has become absolutely essential that children learn all aspects of life at school. In view of this it is highly desired that schools teach ethical and social values in addition to academic skills and I disagree that schools should be responsible only for teaching academic skills.

A number of schools focus on teaching ethical and social values. One classic example of this is the Aurobindo Ashram school in Pondicherry, India. Sufficient importance is given to ethical and social lectures in addition to the traditional maths and science lectures in this school. A survey carried out in the town of Pondicherry had shown that children who come from the Aurobindo Ashram school are usually very well behaved, compassionate and better able to meet the challenges of life.The lectures on ethical and social values also act as a positive distraction for the students from the traditional maths and science lectures. This also helps the students to get better grades in their major subjects.

In this world if schools are not the place where ethical and social values are taught then I am not sure as to where children would learn these. I am absolutely convinced that parents and other do not get sufficient time to spend with their children to teach them social and ethical values. These values play such an important role in modern society. An individual may be academically brilliant but if he lacks ethical and social values then he/she might cause great harm to society and where better to learn these values than from schools.

In addition to schools, a number of other factors also play in a role in helping the individual to understand more about ethical and social values. However, it is absolutely essential that the ethical and social values are taught to the children in schools. Learning these good things together in school will help the children to take on the challenges of life in a much better fashion.