Essay Question:
Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for a charity, improving the neighbourhood or teaching sports to younger children). To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Essay:
High schools are places where students at the age of between 15 and 18 learn new information and new skills which are required to proceed to college. Besides these lessons, schools also provide unpaid community service opportunities to the students as an obligatory.
In these unpaid community services, students improve their skills with the help of community projects and teamwork. The reason why I believe students gain new skills is that I get involved in various unpaid community services for the same reason. Since the students work together, they have a chance to share their ideas with each other, which allows students to approach problems from numerous points of views.
In the world, there are lots of people who can’t afford essential needs such as food or health services. To solve this problem, some unpaid community services determined their main purpose as providing services to needy people. Thanks to these community services, young people can provide services to these people under the name of their community. Also, needy people acquire the chance to get free service that they need.
Nonetheless, these unpaid community services, which are provided by school, are generally obligatory. This obligation may sometimes have bad consequences on students’ willingness to volunteer. That is to say, young volunteers can feel pressure on themselves, which may also cause them to lose their interest in helping people voluntarily. This loss of interest can withdraw students from the community services for their entire life.
In conclusion, unpaid community services should be introduced to students at the beginning of their academic life. But two important points, which are generally ignored by the schools, need to be considered: rewarding and encouraging rather than obligating students.
