In some countries, at secondary at high school, there may be two or three streams of studies, academic or vocational. What are the advantages of this to the students and the society of putting students at the two streams at the age of 15?

In some countries, at secondary at high school, there may be two or three streams of studies, academic or vocational. What are the advantages of this to the students and the society of putting students at the two streams at the age of 15?

 

Ielts Essay - Streaming Students 

Nowadays, higher education entails streaming students into academic or vocational subjects. Despite being questioned for its validity and effectivity in the current context, this strategy has been continued since several reasons can be cited in support this format of formal tuition at high or secondary level.  

The policy of streaming the pupils, at the age of 15, into vocational or academic area of studies, as per their abilities and inclinations carries multiple advantages. This helps the growing minds to clearly set their objectives and pursue them dedicatedly. As they have fewer subjects to explore and study, the pupils can focus on those completely. This does not only save them time but also protects them from extra burden they might have to bear while studying subjects of little consequence to the knowhow of domains the pupils are pursuing.

On the top of that, strategy of grouping students pursuing similar subjects offers certain inbuilt advantages. Like minded pupils pursuing homogenous syllabus tend to learn faster, and the class work progresses at a fairly brisk pace. Besides this, the young learners can also gauge their accomplishments in contrast to their classmates clearly and concretely, this often results in a healthy competition which ultimately is interpreted into excellent academic results.

Furthermore, this system can prove to be highly advantageous for the society too: the economy of a country can quickly harness the talents of young professionals and academicians, in form of their contributions to the economic productivity. These professionals, in their own domains, can bring around other benefits too, e.g. these professionals do not only save money, otherwise spent on training them, but also train others.

To conclude, I feel that pushing students into specific domain study at a young age can prove to be highly counterproductive.