Topic: What would you do to make your school/education better?

Among the things that people complain about, the schools’ education system is a contender to the throne. Some people might say that it is necessary for students to get an education; others may try to argue that school expands social circles, but none will try to pretend that any education system is perfect. Nonetheless, there are various ways and strategies can be used to improve the education system.

In Taiwan's high schools, three problems come up most frequently. Firstly, the lacks of applicable knowledge being taught as students are often forced to study subjects that are not applicable to their careers. For instance, students are forced to calculate specific mathematics problems entirely by hand, even though in the work world, people use calculators. Or liberal arts students might find themselves being pushed to study chemistry and physics when they have no interest in the science field. Students might even be forced to take up classes like the history of art or music to ensure they are not held back, whether or not they have any interest at all. This results in the students wasting time, energy, and resources for a class they are not fond of and would not help them in the future. Besides, the knowledge acquired would quickly be forgotten after the final exam rendering an entire year or couple of years of school useless.

Secondly, in Taiwan, the school hours are long as a result of an extended curriculum. This situation forces Taiwanese students to take an average of fourteen subjects per semester or roughly eight hours of class every day. Due to the extensive curriculum and the lack of adequate teachers has resulted in many students cramming up in school so that to take an extra four to six hours of private schooling every week. Many high schools require a "night study time," where the students have to stay at school for extra exams or to study until nine o'clock. This leads to students being exhausted, depressed, and having little or no time for extracurricular activities. Also, the students fail to have time to consider what they might want to do in the future.

Thirdly, Taiwanese students also receive inadequate guidance from the schools. The counselors provided are only responsible for ensuring that students know how to perform well in college entrance exams. This is a tough exercise considering most of the students fail to understand their future career aspirations. The counselors fail to tell the students how to pursue their ambitions, for example, they do not inform the students of the possibilities of enrolling in schools outside of the country, and even when they do, they provide little assistance.

Additionally, each counselor is responsible for roughly six classes of students, with anything between fifty to eighty students per class, rendering them incapable of giving their full attention to every student. Ultimately, with this kind of educational system students might end up with good grades, however, they fail to know what they want in the future, have almost no social life or understanding of the real world, and have no talents in anything other than studying. In this situation, Taiwanese high schools have failed to help students succeed in the primary objectives; to help students learn about themselves, the world, and what they want regarding future career goals.

To fix the flawed education system, I believe the most important thing is to address the root of the problem; the school curriculum....