GMAT Essays (AWA)

Primary and secondary education should focus on training students for the highly specialized jobs of the future, rather than on providing them with a broad range of non-specific skills and information."

The issue of whether primary and secondary education should focus on training students for highly specialized jobs of the future or provide them with a broad range of non specific skills and information is a controversial topic. On one hand we need students to be ready to take up the highly specialized jobs , on the other hand is it too early to determine what job a student want to pursue while he or she is still doing primary education and secondary education. I will go with the view that students should be provided a broad range of non specific skills and information at the primary level and a bit more in the secondary level.

One of the reasons for my belief is that primary education and secondary education are the building blocks or the foundation for a student. During this period a student must get to know a broad range of non specific skills and information. If the student is deprived of these information then it is difficult for a student to choose from a range of jobs that would be presented to him or her. A student given specific training means we are moulding the childs thinking to a specific thing before even we know what is his or her liking.

Another reason for my beleif is that to be successful in hir or her career a person must enjoy what he or she is doing. If a person does not enjoy the work that he or she does then success of that person is very difficult. Primary education and secondary education are meant to develop and identify ones liking and areas of interest. If a person is told that you have to study medicine even when the person is not interested in medicine then we will produce not a very good doctor or a medical specialist. It is very important to identify the area of interest and that cannot be determinedif one has to undergo a specialized training at such an early stage of life.

One of the primary reasons for my beleif is that the jobs for future are changing very rapidly. What was a very specialized skillset few years back becomes simple because of the advacement of technology. Some of the jobs that were present before have become obsolete now. If we have a foundation which is build on a broad range of informaiton then it is possible to choose one career at the time of taking masters or specialization. The timing of that is very close to the real world.

Therefore I beleive that student should be given a broad range of non specific skills and information to choose lateron what he or she wants to pursue.

Some observation

1. Primary reason is talked in last para...ideally it should be first one

2. One more important point can be added that... if we keep on providing specialized courses new generation may not have full range of spectrum that what else can be invented by synergizing existing possible options. Hence we may not be devloping scientists.