Importance of Essay Writing in a Student's Educational Life

It could not be underestimated about the importance and relevance of essay writing in the formal education system at levels from the primary education level, secondary education level, and the tertiary education level including the higher education level institutions such as universities and colleges. From the time that a six or seven year old child would enter the primary school level until a young adult enters and leaves a university or college, he has already researched, wrote and completed voluminous pages of in essay writing and he has also performed academic writings that are influenced by essay writing.

So what are the reasons for the importance and relevance of essay writing for the entire duration of a student's educational life? The primary reasons include the use of the essay as an important educational tool. In the primary education and secondary education levels, students are already taught and learn about the basic essay formats such as the five-paragraph essay. Within the confines of one paragraph for the introduction, three paragraphs for the body, and one paragraph for the conclusion, a student is taught on how could express his ideas and thoughts about a topic that is assigned to him.

In the higher education level, the essay writing is an important part of academic tasks such as assignments, projects, coursework tasks, and even in laboratory experiments. Impromptu essay writing that has to be completed within one hour as part of a written examination. That examination technique is often used as way of assessing their writing skills to produce high quality and well written literary compositions under the pressure of extreme deadlines.

In addition, essay writing is used as an evaluation tool to assess the comprehension and mastery of the materials that the students learned from their lectures in the school campus. However, essay writing is also used to assess the comprehension and mastery of the knowledge and skills learned by the students when they undergo on the job training or internship in actual work settings.

Educating Ethnic Minority Pupils in Comparison with Poor Native English Pupils

In an article published in the UK newspaper The Telegraph dated March 2009, it was found that rapid progress in school was being made by children with Asian backgrounds in comparison with native English working class boys. Former head of OFSTED Sir Mike Tomlinson commented that parents of white working class students do not place the same value on acquiring a good education in comparison with ethnic minority parents. This results to poor white students having lower expectations of what they will achieve, ultimately leading to lack of effort on the students part and of course, low results when it comes to grades and acquiring degrees.

Sir Mike, who is currently acting as chief adviser on London schools, further stated that if these parents fail to support their children to pursue education well, schools are consequently being forced to raise their expectations. This is a controversial statement which will call to attention the focus of government funding on education. The British government allots millions of pounds in budge to tackle the underachievement of boys.

However, statistics indicate that only 15 per cent of boys aged 16 years who qualify to get free school meals, which is a good indicator of deprivation, leave lower level schools with five GCSEs at grades A to C, which includes highly important subjects such as Maths and English. Meanwhile, the figure for boys with African ethnic backgrounds in the same age group is 22 per cent, and Asian boys, 29 per cent. These may still be low but they are seen to be improving. This prompted some critics to argue that funding which is allotted to support the needs of ethnic minority students should be redirected to native English pupils instead.

A report from researchers of Manchester University in the year 2008 brought to light a cycle of underachievement amongst white working class families and is even seen to be endemic in some areas. This report stated that teachers will have to change their mindset that poor white students were more likely to fail owing to their background.