Character or academic development?

Schools should place more emphasis on academic excellence. This is because character development will be more effective when developed at home, and schools have one of the best academic learning environments. However, character development is also very important in life, but without academic excellence, good character's benefits are greatly reduced.

Character development will be more effective when developed at home. This is because, parents are the ones that interact with their children the most, and often, children are influenced by their parents' behaviour because of the interaction. Research have shown that "Children who experience child abuse & neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as juveniles, 28% more likely to be arrested as adults, and 30% more likely to commit violent crime." This clearly shows that parents can influence their child's character greatly. This also supports the fact that character development will be more effective when developed at home because parents possess one of the greatest influences on their child.

Schools should focus more on academic excellence as they have one of the best academic learning environment. Schools contain one of the best learning environment, including well-trained teachers, classrooms designed for learning and facilities like a library. This type of good learning environment is hard to find elsewhere, and so, schools should focus more on academic excellence as it will be maximising the benefits of their learning environment. It is harder to achieve academic excellence if a student learns by himself as many students do not have the discipline to focus on learning as they will be easily distracted by different forms of entertainment, and they need to depend on the teachers to guide them and instill discipline in them through the use of punishment. However, schools do not have a good character development environment as the amount of time a student interacts with each of his teacher is very little as compared to the interaction with their parents. Thus, in order to maximise the benefits of going to school, schools should focus more on academic excellence.

However, character development is also very important in life. When a person have good character, things normally come in favour of him. More opportunities are given to people with better character as compared to people with bad character, when both have the same academic qualifications. However, without academic excellence, the benefits of a good character will be greatly reduced. An example will be that if you were to give a job to a person, you will most likely give it to a university graduate without a good character instead of a cleaner with only primary school education, even if he has good character. Therefore, since a good character is not very beneficial without the presence of academic excellence, schools should focus more on academic excellence.

In conclusion, schools should focus more on academic excellence as character development should be done at home, academic excellence is necessary to make the presence of good character beneficial, and that schools are designed to develop students academically.