Does education prepare students for the real world?

For all students, attending school is a fundamental part of life, a necessity in preparing us for experiences in years to come, product of the hours upon hours of often arduous exercises and experiences spent inside a classroom. Many have suggested that with numerous technological breakthroughs, and a significant rise in the opportunities offered in the education of today’s day and age, students are becoming increasingly more prepared for latter stages in their life. But is this development evolving at too slow of a rate? Does today’s education system effectively prepare students for the real world?

Ultimately, what good is learning if students don’t use this knowledge learned at school later on in life? It is evident that many parts of learning that students put meticulous time into mastering, with intention of benefiting them later on into adulthood, are simply inaccessible. An experiment by German psychologist, Ebbinghaus, revealed that students forget up to 95% of what they learn in school after just three days. 

Nonetheless, it is debatable that forgetting this content is not to the detriment of pupils; the vast majority of content pupils are educated on is in fact irrelevant to the world we live in.

This is because the world revolves around money.

A student’s knowledge in the field of business and finance is not enriched until the penultimate years of secondary education. Business and finance skills are essential in every adult’s day-to-day life, whereas other subjects that are prioritised many a time are disputably frivolous and far from necessary.

In a standard Dartford Grammar School week for Year 7s, students spend 150 minutes enrolled in Maths lessons despite there being only 80,000 mathematicians worldwide, roughly 1% of the population according to MathOverflow.

However, according to Salary.com, of the ten most populous jobs worldwide, only one of the listed occupations is educated to students at any point in their education period, this being accounting. 

Furthermore, the existing schooling system fails to educate pupils in several imperative areas crucial to a successful transition period of youth to adulthood, such as; negotiation skills, taxation, budgeting and investment skills, basic cooking skills and straightforward survival skills.

But, with a rise in prioritisation in one area comes a deficiency of prioritisation in another. There would undoubtedly be a multitude of different teaching organisations that would be very reluctant in letting go of traditional subjects of learning that they regard as valuable to every student’s education. For example, subject areas of focus such as Shakespeare or calculus are often considered indispensable in the nationwide curriculum. 

In addition to this, innumerable students have expressed a fear of independence and the responsibilities that come in the absence of a guardian. Teachers act as chaperones inside the classroom; restricting students in several ways, such as setting deadlines, creating rules, and generally ensuring that there is order in a class. This fails to prepare pupils for college, a significant step up in intensity- entirely unimaginable for many students.

On the other hand, school plays an essential role in a child’s development as an individual, expanding a student’s ability in numerous social and disciplinary skills, such as meeting deadlines, teamwork skills, attendance, punctuality and social interaction with people both similar and different to us.

For instance, whilst playing a certain team sport, a student is not solely indulged in the experience of the sport itself. The event was not merely to improve their skills in that certain sport, but to ameliorate their capability of acting as a team player. Every time that student loses; picking themselves back up again is more valuable than improving in that certain sport itself. Furthermore, it also advances their perseverance and persistence on the road to becoming the best that they can be.

The extensive range of activities a teacher assigns to a student are not simply to be forgotten after the ringing of the school bell, but to utilise skills required in becoming a flourishing, self-reliant adult, such as confident speaking, creativity and a healthy mind-set for personal development.

The endless number of annual events celebrated in school – Christmas, Chinese New Year, Anti-Bullying Day, etc. – are only enriched inside the classroom, and inform students about these events of celebration whilst developing a sense of community and enriching the school experience. The frequent days where students are necessitated to donate a small amount of money has become second nature to them, subconsciously furthering their moral inclination to donate to charity.

School is comprised of many principles akin to the real world; irrespective of a student’s lack of desire to go to school, they legally have to be present. Irrespective of how much a student detests a particular teacher, they are obligated to do as they are told and follow instructions.

Does education really prepare students for the real world?

It heavily depends on what you consider the purpose of school is.