Hi everyone, please have a look at my essay and tell me what could be improved. I'm preparing for the IELTs exam but I'm not very acquainted with the IELTs style, so I need your advice.
Topic: Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for a charity, improving the neighborhood or teaching sports to younger children). To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Community service, even if unpaid, is rewarding to both those who volunteer and those who get helped, and thus, should be encouraged. Nevertheless, its alleged benefits, especially to high school students, pose ethical questions as to whether it should be enforced as a mandatory part of tertiary education. From my perspective, community service should be compulsory, as I believe that it offers students lessons that most textbooks do not.
First and foremost, extra-curriculum voluntary activities can brings students a sense of social involvement. While students are being bombarded with tons of information nowadays, their social life has become more monotonous than ever. Voluntary activities, e.g nursing patients in convalescent homes or teaching children without access to formal education, help bridge distances between people, and in a sense, bring students a feeling of getting connected.
More importantly, though, participation in community service trains invaluable soft skills, which otherwise can be hard to acquire for a student. Many Asian pupils, for instance, concentrates exclusively on their academic performance; consequently they become more susceptible to culture shocks when thrown into new surroundings or at workplace. Assigned tasks which might exert certain impacts on the community can foster students' awareness of hard work, boost their sense of responsibility, and teach them how to adapt themselves. This prepares students for their future career, especially if the programmes are geared towards their intended fields of specialization at college.
The remaining issue is, to what extent community service benefits if it becomes compulsory. If such programmes are to be implemented on a large scale with regular supervision, every student can have an equal opportunity to socialize, do meaningful things, and furthermore, apply their knowledge into practice. Voluntary community service, along with school curricula, in a word, fulfils the purpose of education: to educate children both academically and socially.
Topic: Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for a charity, improving the neighborhood or teaching sports to younger children). To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Community service, even if unpaid, is rewarding to both those who volunteer and those who get helped, and thus, should be encouraged. Nevertheless, its alleged benefits, especially to high school students, pose ethical questions as to whether it should be enforced as a mandatory part of tertiary education. From my perspective, community service should be compulsory, as I believe that it offers students lessons that most textbooks do not.
First and foremost, extra-curriculum voluntary activities can brings students a sense of social involvement. While students are being bombarded with tons of information nowadays, their social life has become more monotonous than ever. Voluntary activities, e.g nursing patients in convalescent homes or teaching children without access to formal education, help bridge distances between people, and in a sense, bring students a feeling of getting connected.
More importantly, though, participation in community service trains invaluable soft skills, which otherwise can be hard to acquire for a student. Many Asian pupils, for instance, concentrates exclusively on their academic performance; consequently they become more susceptible to culture shocks when thrown into new surroundings or at workplace. Assigned tasks which might exert certain impacts on the community can foster students' awareness of hard work, boost their sense of responsibility, and teach them how to adapt themselves. This prepares students for their future career, especially if the programmes are geared towards their intended fields of specialization at college.
The remaining issue is, to what extent community service benefits if it becomes compulsory. If such programmes are to be implemented on a large scale with regular supervision, every student can have an equal opportunity to socialize, do meaningful things, and furthermore, apply their knowledge into practice. Voluntary community service, along with school curricula, in a word, fulfils the purpose of education: to educate children both academically and socially.
