TOEFL Independent Writing, Is it more worthwhile for the government to spend money on primary education or on college education?

Writing Topic

Do you think it is more worthwhile for the government to spend money on primary education or on college education? Support your response by including specific reasons and examples.

 

☆Let’s think

Used at the end of the question of this writing topic is the word “college education”, not university or university studies. Thus the word “college education” in this question means the first four years of the highest education. It does not mean the top-notch research and development conducted by the professors and graduate students, one of the two main functions of a university. The other of the two functions is college education.

 

Various points of views would bring various answers in choosing between primary and college educations. What answers would be worked out through egalitarianism, redistribution of the wealth (solution to the gap between the rich and poor) or competitiveness of the country?

 

Picturing what would happen, what you can do with the money, in each case of supporting either primary education or college education might be another idea of coming up with the your answer. Providing a tablet computer with free access to the Internet to each pupil would effect different changes from what doing it to each college student would unfold.

 

☆Ideas and Expressions

♦Primary education

♢The government should support the larger proportion of the population. Its money is public. It is supported by our tax. Therefore, It should spend more money on providing as good an education as possible for all children than selected young adults.

 

♢To solve the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor, more money should go to primary education, because there the gap is largest in terms of opportunity of receiving a good education. College students are those who have already proved themselves to be elites and have some advantages because of the status.

 

♦College education

♢For the purpose of making a country richer, it seems more worthwhile to spend money on college education than it is to do it on primary education. The United States, the richest country in the world, spends abundant money on college education while keeps reducing costs on primary education. The country panders to smart people, so that they pay it back with great inventions and innovations. The result is that, while a large percentage of the population cannot comprehend most news articles or do not know where Iraq is, the country has the largest number of patents in the world.

 

♦It depends on the situation on which level it is more worthwhile to spend money

♢In the case of a developing country, where most people are illiterate, spending money on primary education seems to be essential. On the other hand, what a developed country needs is a large number of creative people to be more productive in the international competition, so it might be a good idea to spend a large sum on college education.

 

♢If a long term profit of the country is the base of the decision, tax money should be allocated to primary schools to raise the academic level of the larger number of people, children. If the country needs good ideas as soon as possible, it should support college students. Good workforce is the foundation of a good society while it is usually those with higher-level of education that work out key ideas to support their community, company, and country.

 

☆Reference

Dr. Koshiba, a Nobel laureate of physics, says that children should be taught science by people who themselves love science and know what they are doing, like university students, in order for children to see how fun it is to lean science.

 

Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic author, wrote in his essay when he happens to see someone who is so smart that he could have become a distinguished man had he received a proper education in his childhood doing some menial job, he feels like crying.