It is true that formal study plays a major role in any child’s upbringing, and help preparing them for their future career. Some schools have gone even further to provide pupils with extracurricular activities specifically aimed at familiarizing them with competencies they require in their professional life. In the following paragraphs the responsibilities schools have to get children ready for their future occupations will be discussed in greater details.
It is undeniable that the primary responsibility of any school is academic studies. Although some might say that academic courses will not directly be utilized in many occupations, they create the necessary grounds for any career. Take a blue-collar job, such as plumbing for instance. Any plumber should have enough mathematics background to be able to perform simple accounting. This seems impossible without garnering this knowledge through a mathematic course at school. As a result, the primary role of the schools should remain focused on academic education.
In addition, schools can assist the pupils to instill soft-skills, such as time management, decision making and problem solving. This can be done either indirectly through teachers’ coaching in parallel with the academic courses, or directly by having separate soft-skill trainings as an extracurricular activity, or in an after-school childcare scheme. For instance, if a child is familiar with decision making methodologies, they can even choose their future career more wisely which definitely lead them to better job prospects. Thus, the second most important responsibility of schools should be soft-skill trainings.
Overall, schools are accountable to teach students the necessary academic subjects and soft-skills that will be crucial in making them ready for their future careers.