Category: Youth

Today’s competitive world places a lot of emphasis on academics. While intellectual skills are important, one should also place importance on a practical ability like teamwork, fixing and repairing things around the house. Practical ability can thus be described as essential life skills needed to survive in the world. It can be said that in today’s world practical ability is as important as intellectual skills.

Supporters of intellectual abilities state that good grades in school open doors to reputed universities. Getting good grades in these highly reputed universities boosts the resume of individuals and leads them to get jobs in good companies. For example, many parents emphasize that their children attend top universities like Oxford and Cambridge so that it raises their social status. It is also seen that many companies prefer hiring people who have studied at a reputed college rather than a local college. The preference for intellectual abilities is also seen in the job description of these companies where candidates from top-tier schools and universities are preferred. Scholarships around the world are granted to people who score good marks in their academics which furthers backs their claim that intellectual abilities are more important than any other thing. Thus, it can be said that bright job opportunities and improvement in one’s social status lead people to place more emphasis on intellectual skills rather than practical skills.

However, not all people who have sterling intellectual abilities good at performing jobs that require practical skills. In fact, more and more jobs today require the candidate to have practical skills rather than formal college degree or diploma. Notable examples of this include companies like Apple, IBM and Google who offer freshers jobs based on skills rather than academic credentials. Service-based industries like Starbucks and Amazon also do not place an emphasis on a college degree as practical skills are more important in these jobs. If an individual has the practical ability, they can even outshine people who just have intellectual abilities. A notable example of this can be the work of Doctor Hamilton Naki, a self-taught surgeon who made numerous contributions to the science of transplantation and also got a chance to assist Christiaan Barnard in a successful heart transplant surgery. This shows that practical skills are an important factor in success rather than just intellectual abilities. Therefore, practical competence is as important as intellectual skills.

With changing times people are placing importance on practical abilities as well. This is evident from the fact that people today celebrate people with practical skills as much as they celebrate people with intellectual skills. For example, there are many self-taught chefs that have received accolades worldwide without any proven intellectual abilities or prestigious academic records. In Singapore, this is evident through the success of chef Chan Hon Meng and chef Lee Meng Li who have gained Michelin stars for their dishes based on their culinary skills. Similarly, sportsperson like swimmers, cricketers and footballers do not need academic skills but practical skills and techniques of the sport they play. It can be said that these people receive more appreciation than people with intellectual skills and no practical skills. Therefore, it can be said that practical skills are more important than intellectual skills.

The importance of practical skills can be seen in modern society. Even though people are today securing degrees and formal education they do lack employable skills. Even though people are graduates and even post-graduates they have failed to acquire jobs. This is evident from the high unemployment rates of graduates and even post-graduates. In today’s world if people have to succeed then they need to be more or equally good at practical skills. Thus, it is important that one must possess the aptitude to navigate an increasingly complex globalised world.

In conclusion, it can be said that practical skills are as important as intellectual and academic achievements. Though intellectual abilities may be required in some jobs, most jobs require people to have practical skills rather than theoretical knowledge.

For a majority of people, higher education undoubtedly remains key to achieving success. Not only are degrees badges of acquired skill, but they are also sometimes even status symbols. In addition, the experience of going through higher education often proves to be greatly important if one seeks a successful career. Higher education still plays a vital role in the pathway to success.

It is easy to see why there has been increasing optimism of attaining success through means other than higher education. First, the rapid growth of online courses such as Coursera and Phoenix University have led to the argument that the advent of the Internet has made it such that individuals no longer need higher education to obtain the skills they require for their jobs. Second, people often lament that despite obtaining degrees, they are unable to find work, and cannot pay off college debts they have accumulated. Third, mass media platforms have recently painted pictures of how individuals like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg reached the very peak of what it means to be “successful”, without ever needing the support of higher education. This leads to the claim that higher education has lost its ability to deliver some measures of success. These three arguments present the case that higher education is no longer necessary for success.

However, it is overly assertive to claim that the skills that people learn from university education are irrelevant, even with the aid of the Internet. Instead, it is more reasonable to believe that higher education provides greater opportunities for learning. Though it may be possible to obtain the same access to information, it is only at universities that individuals of similar interests are able to gather in a classroom, exchange thoughts and ideas with each other, and learn under the tutelage of professors at the forefronts of their fields. Comparatively, those who do not attend higher education do not have that same opportunity to ask peers or professors for help when they run into problems understanding the content taught. Especially for specialised fields like biotechnology and law, the skills and knowledge necessary for the future remain largely accessible only to those who have undergone higher education. From this, it is clear that university graduates have greater propensity to gain skills and knowledge than non-graduates.In addition, the university degree itself is a badge of acquired skill, reassuring employers that these employees have learnt the content, and are able to handle the work assigned to them. This means that graduates are more likely to be hired than non-graduates, which often translates into higher salaries. Furthermore, the trust that employers have in graduates’ ability to perform better often translates into greater financial remuneration. Today, bachelor’s degree holders can expect median lifetime earnings of about US$2.3 million, as compared to US$1.3 million for workers with just a high school diploma. Ultimately, higher education does in fact bring about greater financial success for graduates.

It is also fallacious to argue that higher education has stopped being a necessary part of being successful just because there have been exceptions to it. Not only were Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates intellectual geniuses and visionaries who had foreseen and grasped business opportunities, but they were also born into circumstances which ultimately facilitated their success. Courses offered at universities could not offer advice to these entrepreneurs embarking as pioneers of a new field. On the other hand, an overwhelming proportion of individuals do not enjoy the same kind of privilege, be it financial or intellectual. Hence, for most, the likely route to success is higher education, which sets them apart from other job applicants.

In fact, for most occupations excluding degree-blind jobs such as entrepreneurship and advertising, higher education plays an integral role in assimilating graduates into their future workplaces. Upon entering the workplace, university graduates depend upon the ties they had developed to help them along, and this often stems from their higher education experience. For example, specialists often depend on the referrals of other doctors to obtain a base of patients. In such a situation, getting to know others who are in the field is incredibly important for one’s career advancement prospects. Thus, higher education is not just about the content and skills involved, but also the relationships graduates develop with each other. The social advantage that higher education offers hence allows graduates to get a leg up over non-graduates.

In essence, higher education remains necessary for success. This is not to say that all graduates are necessarily more successful than all non-graduates, because of the multitude of factors involved. However, university graduates do indeed benefit greatly from higher education, a crucial factor contributing to being successful.

The word failure is employed in a few ways within the education system – it may be used as a concept to reflect the academic performance of a student, to grade a physical assignment or test, and even as a spoken criticism used by teachers on underperforming students. Education’s purpose, broadly speaking, is to transfer knowledge to students, and a means to gauge the degree to which the student has gained knowledge is through these tests and assignments. The use of this term failure is important, nonetheless, as part of education – it is important as a grading standard to both students and the school, and also serves as a means for students to improve. Its eradication then loses its benefits and also creates new problems for education systems.

Opponents of the term’s use would claim that its use as a concept is unfair because there have been many instances where children have been cast aside as “failures”, though they grow up to succeed eventually. However, the concept of failure is an important one because it is an invariable constant in everyone’s lives – teaching children of it and getting them to experience it is the first step to exposing them to the real world, as one cannot hope to succeed in all their endeavours. The blow to students whenever they encounter failure increases with time because stakes increase – not only is a matter of a single assignment but also rejection from job interviews, relationships and the like. Besides, the concept of failure does not vanish merely because the word is used – rather failure is something that permeates through all things competitive. Instead of fearing the word “failure”, the grade “E” becomes the replacement for it, which covertly refers to the failure of the student in that test. Having understood that failure cannot be avoided throughout life, dealing with it head-on by introducing the concept openly to students will teach students to confront their fears, and to improve themselves to prevent another “failure”. The concept of failure is something that must be embraced by students as life’s constant, and they must learn to deal with it appropriately – education cannot seek to hide these important concepts of life from students if it is to achieve its goals of transferring knowledge.

Critics would assert that grading assignments as a “failure” deal too great an emotional blow to growing children, and teachers should refrain from using the term within the educational structure. This would purportedly cause students’ academic performance to drop instead. Despite this claim, the importance of the grade supersedes the emotional loss. the value of the term is most evident in its meaning. Assignments and tests are meant to guide the process of education because it serves as a measure of the proficiency of the student in a specific area. For instance, a biology test tests the ability of the student to synthesise information given to him about the human body, to interpret graphs, and be able to identify certain traits and symptoms. Hence, a student who is deemed a “failure” in the test has not succeeded in obtaining the skills deemed by his teachers to be important. Not only does this mean that labelling the work submitted by the student to be a “failure” is a fair decision, but it also alerts the student to his insufficiency. Thus, using “failure” to grade a piece of work is fair and beneficial.

Some would continue to argue that teachers must act as a form of encouragement for their students, and should not label their students as failures, which would cause them to be shunned. Instead, they should give encouraging grades which would instil positive attitudes. While it is true that teachers should not be careless with criticisms, most teachers are responsible with their words, and more often than not the word is meant as a tool for incentivising greater effort from students for them to attain better performances. On the other hand, the elimination of the term “failure” only generates the problem of grade inflation and decreased standards of education. To relieve themselves of the conundrum of having to give low scores, teachers would decide to reveal answers before a test, give more marks than is due, and award passing grades to even the lowest of scores. Keeping students blind to the world’s requirements is a huge problem especially in today’s hyper-connected, globalised world that requires competition with not just the local students but also those from all around the world. Hence, the forced removal of the term “failure” causes success and achievement to lose its relative meaning, and instead only fosters false hopes that will harm students in the future.

Only when we acknowledge our failure, can we identify reasons for our insufficiency and resolve these problems. Education should guide us in this direction, for failure is an inescapable situation that will exist, whether or not we use it as a word on assignments or on students’ performance in general. Its absence, however, only generates falsified confidence in students, beckoning them towards failure once they leave school. Therefore, failure should be used in education, both taught as a concept and as a remark to push students towards bettering themselves.

The conception of an education system came with the aim of equipping students with the necessary skills to fill the jobs in the economy to make the country more productive. This form of education is most efficacious when there is a fixed set of rules for those that comprise it – it guarantees an entire batch of workers able to work efficiently on the assembly line. As society develops, so has the system of education, which aims to meet society’s needs. In a world where societies are becoming increasingly meritocratic, education has become less about knowledge and more about students’ achievements and grades, compelling people to avert from “the road less taken”. As a result, education restricts one’s choices and ends up developing multiple individuals who are good at abiding by rules but lack personal voices and interests.

It is claimed by some that the education system has diversified, allowing a vast array of choices for students – we can now choose what school to attend, and what courses to take. The choices individuals make, they argue, would be reflective of the differing qualities and characteristics of each person. Theoretically, this argument may hold true, but education today is not just as simple as they suggest. Granted, it may be true that there is now a larger variety of choices for a student, but the overwhelming need to conform to expectations overcomes it. On the most basic level, students need to conform to the most basic school rules or risk punishment. For instance, a large number of schools mandate a uniform appearance – all students of the same school have to wear the clothes of the same design, and there are rules about every single part of one’s appearance. Not only is this inherently an expectation to conform, but it also conditions young minds to think that their actions will represent that of the school, so anything that catches others’ attention is deemed to be “bad”, and is frowned upon. This means that students are discouraged from taking up courses commonly associated with unsuccessful people. For example, Korean society expects its crème de la crème to study engineering or medicine in university, although that may not be everyone’s cup of tea. This is because they buy into the concept that people should practice what others before them had done because that is thought to be the “safe” route to success which guarantees a stable income.

Opponents of the thesis argue that effective teachers can instil a sense of interest in learning in their students. As a result, students will have a life-long thirst for knowledge. Despite the claim, the truth remains that the system of education today creates obstacles for teachers, which limits their ability rather than help them teach effectively. Most education systems around the world today have national exams because it is deemed necessary in order to determine the standard of the students. In the face of these inevitable examinations, teachers rush to prepare students for the multitude of questions to be tested. In such a circumstance, even a teacher who believes in developing the interests of students has no choice but to focus the bulk of his or her lesson on the curriculum to be tested. This is because the education ministry gauges the ability of teachers based on how much improvement students make in terms of grades, and focuses less on students’ holistic, all-rounded development, something that cannot be measured accurately. In Singapore’s case, parents that traditionally adopt the “kiasu” mindset fret over finding tuition classes for their children sitting for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), GCSE “O” Levels or “A” Levels examinations, while teachers feel pressured to get as many “A”s in class as possible.

Effectively, the requirements of education as set out by the country’s government limits the ability of teachers, even good ones. Furthermore, it would be idealistic to argue that all teachers are as effective as opponents claim them to be – in many cases teachers are more focused on getting students to do well in order to get a raise in pay, as compared to trying diligently to help develop each individual student based on his or her needs and interests. Anything outside the declared curriculum is seen to be “unnecessary” or “irrelevant”. In addition to the fact that teachers are limited by the requirements of the system, the school also has to be accountable to society. Parents send their children to school with the expectation that the latter group will gain knowledge and learn some morals, and this expectation falls on the teachers and the school. Schools tend to err on the side of caution because they are paid to take care of the needs of students, so they are unwilling to take risks. However, creating a system actively promoting individual development hinges on not just the curriculum and the school rules – it comes with a large amount of risk. Encouraging individuals to find out more about themselves necessarily means that teachers do not advise students on what they should do – teachers let children develop without interference. When a system is lax, it cannot identify children who are acting abnormally and help them. As a result, if a child grows up in a poor living environment, he is likely to be negatively influenced, and this is where a hands-off system fails. It is exactly this that many schools are afraid of, compelling them to hold a tighter leash on students and forces them to conform to the rules, thereby limiting students’ ability to explore and develop their interests.

Critics would argue that individuals can spend time on their own outside of the school gates in order to develop their own passions because they are still able to choose what extracurricular activities to take up and what activities they should pick up in their free time. However, this is increasingly untrue in a world where the burden of students keeps increasing. Students of today recognise that their future choices hinge upon their grades – even with an outstanding co-curricular portfolio, it all comes to nought if they cannot manage their academic grades. This is because educational achievements are the determining factor of the nature of one’s future – when hiring employees, many corporations today look at the school the applicant attended his grades, the scholarships he received and so on. Hence, the students of today go to school not to gain new knowledge about topics they are interested in, but rather in a mad paper-chase to build up their portfolios. This generates an interest to focus more on academics, equating to a heavier workload. This results in individuals unwilling to spend time nurturing their own passions and interests – the time spent on learning a musical instrument is thought to be better spent on revising more past-year physics papers. Even if students pick up an activity that they are interested in, for example, a sport, it would take a backseat in students’ lists of priorities. When push comes to shove, most students would rather drop their sport when the national examinations approach, because the sport is unlikely to define their future lives, unlike good grades achieved in exams. Hence, even outside the school gates, students are compelled to conform to society’s expectations of them, instead of developing their own personal passions.

The idea of rules is central to all forms of education – people need rules to teach them the limits of what they can and cannot do. For instance, a person cannot be allowed to search up the steps needed to make a pipe bomb because the information can cause great harm if misused. However, as are most things in society, rules are double-edged swords. While it protects people from others, it also limits the areas of interest because people avert from testing boundaries, making them conform to what the government or society deems as “safe”. Ultimately, while some can still have that personal space to develop themselves, and indulge in their interests, education systems largely warn individuals against challenging social norms and force them to make decisions that may not be the best for every individual in society.