”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.”
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your position with reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
My Response
Some may argue that a broad range of non specific skills does not equip students for the workplace. Instead they believe that the best way to prepare for the highly specialised jobs of the future is start in primary and seconday school. I disagree with this opinion for three reasons.
First the lessons learnt in school are not only for work. School is a place of learning and growing. Children learn social interaction and about the world arond them. Although some subjects taught such as accountancy are designed for business this is the exception rather than the rule.
In addition by starting training in primary school you are determining what kind of job the student will eventually perform. The specialised skills taught will make the student usless in any other job other than the one she has been trained for. Surely determining a specific job at the primary school level is bound to fail.
Some may argue that even at an early age, advanced aptitude tests will be able to determine what type of job the child will do. This assumes that it is not the choice of the person themselves. For example a person better suited for medicine may decide to follow a carreer in law because of some injustice he experienced growing up. This is of course his choice.
Finally the skills needed for highly specialised jobs have to be built on a foundation of basic skills. You cannot teach complicated accounting principles to someone that does not have the foundation of maths or an understanding of debits and credits. Nor can you teach engineering analysis such as structual loading to a student without maths. These techniques are taught at a tertiary level because they need a foundation and are too complicated to be taught at school.
In summary Primary and secondary education should not focus on training students for the highly specialized jobs of the future. The broad range of skills and information currently taught prepare the student for life not just a job. The technical skills are better taught at a tertary level when the student has made her own choice on career to follow.[/b]
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion expressed above. Support your position with reasons and examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
My Response
Some may argue that a broad range of non specific skills does not equip students for the workplace. Instead they believe that the best way to prepare for the highly specialised jobs of the future is start in primary and seconday school. I disagree with this opinion for three reasons.
First the lessons learnt in school are not only for work. School is a place of learning and growing. Children learn social interaction and about the world arond them. Although some subjects taught such as accountancy are designed for business this is the exception rather than the rule.
In addition by starting training in primary school you are determining what kind of job the student will eventually perform. The specialised skills taught will make the student usless in any other job other than the one she has been trained for. Surely determining a specific job at the primary school level is bound to fail.
Some may argue that even at an early age, advanced aptitude tests will be able to determine what type of job the child will do. This assumes that it is not the choice of the person themselves. For example a person better suited for medicine may decide to follow a carreer in law because of some injustice he experienced growing up. This is of course his choice.
Finally the skills needed for highly specialised jobs have to be built on a foundation of basic skills. You cannot teach complicated accounting principles to someone that does not have the foundation of maths or an understanding of debits and credits. Nor can you teach engineering analysis such as structual loading to a student without maths. These techniques are taught at a tertiary level because they need a foundation and are too complicated to be taught at school.
In summary Primary and secondary education should not focus on training students for the highly specialized jobs of the future. The broad range of skills and information currently taught prepare the student for life not just a job. The technical skills are better taught at a tertary level when the student has made her own choice on career to follow.[/b]
