Ques: some people believe the aim of university education is to help graduates get better jobs. Others believe there are much wider benefits of university education for both individuals and society. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Education is of vital importance to the growth of individuals and society as a whole, which means it merits an enormous amount of consideration. The notion that tertiary education serves the foremost purpose of generating high qualitied workers has been refuted by those who suppose universities have a greater number of roles to play besides assuring career path for school leavers.
Initially, let’s look at the first view. Universities were originally vocational training schools whose scope was to provide students with hands-on skills in a given profession. As now people lay the hope of future development over college students who will constitute the main drive of state’s prosperity, higher education would turn to be useless with failure to have practical workforce as output. Intensive labour economy replaced by knowledge-based economy, those attending universities must have advantages over others in securing employment. Futhermore, monetary investment in tertiary education is huge, hence, should be worthing and pay off financially afterward. Therefore, higher education needs to fulfill the role as an instrument for combating unemployment and a ticket to a well-paid desirable job, in turn for the state’s support and government funding.
Moving forward onto the other perception of education, one can argue that intrinsically, higher education can definitely bring more benefits that should not be overlooked by either individuals or the society. Aside from becoming a successful income earner, college students now tend to persue tertiary educational opportunities for a wider range of goals and aspirations. Areas such as arts, philosophy, psychology and human sciences may help individuals gain a better understanding of humanity and figure out their own purposes of life. To a larger extent, university graduates who have undergone the environment of discipline and self-independence will stabilize the well-being of society by their moral codes of behaviour such as giving priority to the elderly or pregnant women in public services.
Both views elaborated above, I believe the two opinions can be reconciled. Universities can be a facilitator for favourable jobs, as well as a platform for other educational pursuits, which benefits students themselves and society one way or another.