BAND 8.0 IELTS ESSAY SAMPLE: PRACTICAL LIFE SKILLS VS ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS DEBATE IN SCHOOLS

All General Writing Task 1 Samples / Band 8.0

Many people argue that teaching practical life skills is more important than focusing on academic achievements in schools. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give your opinion and provide relevant examples to support your answer.

Essay Sample

Although I believe that both practical life skills and academic achievements are crucial, I do not think that practical life skills are more important than academic achievements for students. In what follows I will elaborate on my reasons.

First and foremost, students are not mentally prepared to learn practical life skills. They are young and should not be involved in adulthood challenges. A solid amount of human studies are now available that reveal people who faced challenges associated with adulthood when they were kids have currently serious mental issues and age faster than others. Though this might not directly justify my statement, there are some caveats regarding these studies. For instance, one of these studies pointed out that instead of teaching kids how to deal with their parents divorcing we should keep them away from the whole situation. This might highlight the fact that why the kids are not prepared mentally to learn practical life skills.

Second, students have a golden time learning practical skills in the period after finishing their highschool and before starting their college. There are plenty of online courses available for young generation to educate themself and learn these skills. For instance, I recently decided to purchase an used electric car, but I did have zero information about these cars and how should I inspect them before finalize my purchase. So, I decided to pass a course on car inspection and how to repair basic issues regarding electric cars on Udemy (an online school). This approach has a few benefits. First, we can be selective and learn what we need more instead of being bombarded by a lot of different mandatory subjects in school which might be forgotten soon after school. Plus, as we learn the skills on the job, we can practice more, and in turn, what we learn becomes more effective.

Third, the students are busy enough with theoretical subjects in schools, trying to teach them practical skills would complicate everything. This method of education in schools is being tested for several years by a lot of well-kown specialists. We must be indeed careful about changing it, as it might have serious repercussions on our young generation. In the late 90s, Japan's minister of education proposed a plan to revise the education system for elementary school. They considered the proposal for possible implementation, however, they conducted a 10-years pilot study to confirm if the proposed plan works better than the old one, and if it may have any other unpredictable side effect. This completely sheds light on the fact that we should be extremely caution when it comes to any changes in educational system of our kids.

In conclusion, I believe that we should keep our educational system the way it is and keep our focus on academic achievements rather than practical life skills as they are a lot of better time period for our kids to learn those essential skills. Particularly with the advancements in the online educational platforms, we can guarranty that no kids of ours would grow up lacking practical skills.