QUESTION REPORTED FOR ACADEMIC TASK 2 TEST TAKERS ON 24 JUNE 2021.
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some people think that formal education should start for children as early as possible, while others think that it should not start until 7 years of age.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
MODEL ANSWER>>>>
There exist differences in opinion regarding the ideal age for children to commence their formal education. When some believe it should be as early as possible, others recommend a delay up to seven years. Both views are significant in nature, and hence a thorough discussion is needed before framing a logical conclusion.
The prime reason why the former group recommends an early start of formal education is mainly because of the increasing competition in the fields of both education and career. Compared to the past, today the children are availed with advanced technological facilities to aid better knowledge acquisition. Therefore, it is more logical to make use of these facilities, and make them equipped to survive in today’s challenging living situations. They believe that the early a student starts his formal education, the early he can start to start fighting with these adverse situations: both in case of educational success and in the field of career hunt.
By contrast, critics point at the emotional and intellectual struggle a child would face if he commences his formal education at an earlier age. This would impact the child’s interest towards education negatively. Instead, they recommend children of this age to learn informally from their surroundings, for example, from parents, elders and the environment. They feel this would make their brains more capable to occupy the data from an institutional set-up, later in their life. At the age of seven or eight, their brains are physically grown enough to start procuring formal knowledge like math and science, and this is the key reason why they recommend this as an ideal age for formal education commencement.
After analyzing both views in detail, though an early start of formal education is the recommendation of today’s scenario, I feel it is better to avail children at least two years gap after their toddler stage.