topic sentences about education system

Essays About Education: 20 Topic Ideas For Students

Is education important? These 20 essays about education indicate that it is, and they are a great place to start with crafting your essay. 

In America alone, over 50.7 million students attend public schools . The role of education in society impacts nearly every family in the country, and for that reason, it is a vital topic to discuss. 

An educated population can meet its challenges head-on with a greater ability to problem-solve. Yet sometimes, writing essays about education importance is challenging for writers .

This topic is one that most people can agree on, but few people can define and expound on. If you need to write an essay on the education system and is important to society but need an essay writing prompt, this list is a good place to start. Read on to discover 20 essays about education’s importance to spark your writing creativity.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers !

1. Education Helps Reduce Hunger

2. the importance of education on maternal health and child survival rate, 3. the importance of education for economic growth in a community, 4. how education empowers females in a community, 5. education reduces the risk of violent extremism, 6. the impact of education on the environment, 7. the importance of education for me, 8. educated people tend to be good citizens, 9. is education the key to success, 10. education is a key to improved mental health, 11. the importance of early childhood education, 12. education helps keep people out of prison, 13. education is good for the economy, 14. education is the key to independence, 15. what is an educated person, 16. eduction exposes students to diversity, 17. education teaches critical thinking skills, 18. the importance of earning a college degree, 19. the importance of education on social development, 20. how education builds character.

Did you know there is a tie between having a good education and having enough to eat? In one study of children in Nairobi, researchers found that a mother’s education significantly impacted whether or not the child would have problems with hunger. The more educated the mother, the better fed the child.

This problem is a complex one. Parental education impacts a child’s nutritional status, but a child’s nutritional status impacts their ability to learn. Human beings need their basic needs met first before focusing on learning about the world, so hungry children will miss out on key learning components in their academic years. This essay topic has many directions you can take it. You can focus on the importance of education to reduce the risk of hunger and the importance of nutrition to improve education outcomes.

Statistics show that children who have educated mothers are two times as likely to survive to school age than those who have uneducated mothers. Children born to mothers with 12 years of education are 30% less likely to die before reaching kindergarten than those born to mothers who have no education. Your essay could focus on the importance of education, especially female education, in that it protects the next generation from an early death. In your essay, you can explore the many reasons behind this connection.

For example, educated mothers will know more about child development and appropriate interventions in early childhood than those who are less educated. They are also more likely to have their children vaccinated against childhood illnesses than mothers who lack a high school or college education.

If you want to see a community develop a better economic status, then you need to see an improvement in its education system. An educated population is a key component of steady economic growth within a community. Your importance of education essay can discuss why this is.

When someone is educated, their income earning potential increases; when the people have more money, society also does. You can expand on statistics like this as you build this essay topic.

Diversity and gender inclusivity are important topics in modern society, and education may be a key component. When women learn to be independent financially, they can take control of their life. In addition, educated females reduce the risk of child mortality, as previously discussed, which benefits the community as a whole.

Women who are educated can better protect their health because they have more information about nutrition and healthcare. They also tend to receive better prenatal care when pregnant, which reduces maternal fatalities. This financial independence and improved overall healthcare make education vital for the modern woman, and you can write about this in your essay.

Violent extremism, especially among religious groups, can catalyst everything from riots to wars. Poor education or no education can limit a student’s worldview to a very defined area, making them prime candidates for extremist philosophies.

Education seems to reduce the rates of extremism and raise a generation across the globe that counters these extreme views. With improved education, rates of terrorism and radical extremism may go down. The population has become more economically stable and culturally tolerant. Your essay can expound on these facts and suggest ways to improve education in challenged countries to reduce global terrorism problems.

As you look at why education matters, one surprising point to consider is the impact of education on the environment. In traditional education, teachers can educate students about environmental concerns and how they can take steps to protect the environment for future generations. In addition, people who hold degrees are statistically more likely to adopt pro-environment behaviors in their lives and business as adults.

This essay prompt can be an interesting idea for someone passionate about the environment. You can explore the idea of environmental education in the classroom and that degree-holders are more environmentally responsible than those who do not hold degrees. Both avenues will show the importance of education in building an eco-friendly community.

Many essays on the importance of education focus on the importance to society, but you can take a more personal approach to the benefits of education. This essay can discuss why education is important to you as an individual. What do you hope to accomplish with a proper education that you could not do without one?

For this topic, go beyond simply saying something broad like you want to “change the world” or focus on the “betterment of society.” Instead, make it personal. Dig into why education is the key to success for you, personally. This self-awareness will be something the reader will appreciate.

If you want a peaceful, helpful society, you need to focus on education. People with higher education are more politically active than those with minimal education. They are also more likely to file a complaint if they notice something unsafe or undesirable in their community.

In this essay, you could explore some of these statistics. Then, you could consider why educated citizens are good citizens. Finally, you could discuss how communities can continue to support education to create young people who contribute positively to the greater society.

This essay question is a good starting point because the idiom is common. To answer the question, you must first define what you mean by education and success, then show whether or not someone can be a success without education.

For many, this is a complex question. Education can play a key role in a person’s life, but is it the only key to success, or does the person need tenacity, grit, and ingenuity? This essay is an opinion piece, so decide what your opinion is and then start writing.

The modern world puts quite a bit of stress on people. Interestingly, researchers have found that higher levels of education lead to improved mental health . In your essay, you can discuss why this might be, but keep in mind that this can be a difficult relationship to pin down. The actual reason why it is true may not be something you can find.

Education is closely related to life outcomes, and improved employment and income status often lead to improved mental health. Educated people have more choices about their life paths than uneducated people, and these choices lead to better overall control over their livelihoods. As you consider this connection, you can discuss all of these in your essay.

Many education essays focus on the over-arching idea of the value of education. This essay topic will look a little more closely at an important segment of education. Children with a solid foundation of early education are better equipped to start their school journeys. These years are when children learn social and emotional skills that will help them in later classroom experiences.

The early childhood classroom also lays the groundwork for teaching children that they can learn from someone other than mom or dad. The early childhood classroom adds a layer of intervention to screen children for developmental delays and disorders that may require treatment to make education successful in later years.

While educated and uneducated people alike can end up in jail, statistics show that a good education reduces that risk significantly. The Bureau of Justice Studies found that 41% of people in jail have only some high school education or even less. These statistics show a clear correlation between education and serving jail time.

In your essay, you can discuss why this is. What is it about education that helps keep people operating within the bounds of the law? You can then tie in the importance of education as a safeguard against both unlawful behavior and incarceration.

As already mentioned in previous essay topics, educated people are more likely to be able to get a job that they enjoy.  Community-wide education reduces the number of poor people in most communities. When people have an education, they can get a good-paying job more quickly. These jobs benefit the economy in two ways. First, good-paying jobs put more money into the community to spend. Fewer people in low-income brackets mean fewer people depending on government support, which costs the government money. Discuss this for an interesting essay topic.

For people to grow into independent adults with a good quality of life, they likely need some education. While you will find rags to riches stories of people who made it big without school, most people who have a good job start with a good education. A good job is a starting point to independence because it cares for the financial aspects of life, and thus education seems to be a key to independence as an adult.

This essay topic requires some development, but you can take it quite far if you make an effort. By showing how education is the key to economic stability on an individual level, you can show that it is the key to independence.

Does all education take place in the classroom? Can someone become an educated person without stepping foot in one? If you want to discuss the importance of education, this is a key starting point.

Defining an educated person can help you determine how powerful education is. It can also allow you to discover different avenues of education possible for the modern student. Remember, education is important, but it may not look the same for every person.

One of the benefits of education is the chance that the right school and curriculum have to teach students about other people groups and cultures. This, in turn, creates adults who are more tolerant of people who think or behave differently than them. Of course, this benefit is only possible if the student attends a diverse school or uses a culturally sensitive curriculum, but it is possible.

You could write a lengthy essay on diversity in the classroom and its importance in helping children succeed as adults. You could also discuss how teachers and schools can improve diversity, even if they can’t add more diverse students to their student bodies. With some creativity, most teachers and parents can find ways to incorporate diversity within the classroom and add this important component to their educational goals.

Education, especially higher education, doesn’t just teach facts. It teaches students how to think for themselves. These critical thinking skills can be hard to learn in real life without some training, so education is so important.

Your essay can point out some critical thinking skills school students pick up on in their schooling. You can also take about how to add critical thinking in an age-appropriate manner. Finally, you can discuss what critical thinking skills are most important to add to the curriculum.

Many of these essays on the importance of education focus primarily on high school education and below, but a college education is also important to many individuals. You can craft an interesting essay on the benefits of or importance of earning a college degree. Since some people argue that college is no longer important, this essay topic gives you a platform to explore a more controversial topic and exhibit your persuasive essay skills .

Be open to different perspectives as you write this one. While a college degree is often vital to a career, there are careers you can pursue without one. Explain the importance of education at the college level, but don’t be afraid to mention that some people won’t need to take their education that far.

Education today goes beyond simply teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. It also teaches children how to work with one another in social environments. It teaches them to be good citizens, both local and global communities.

All of these are vital to the social development of young children. Your essay can explore the different ways school and the school environment help teach children how to be social creatures, share with others, work with others, handle conflict, and deal with big emotions.

Can you think of a time in your education when things didn’t go as planned? Maybe you had a teacher who was harder on you than was necessary. Perhaps there was a concept that you could not seem to grasp, no matter how hard you tried. These experiences build character, which is why education is so important.

This essay topic can be personal if you wish it to be. You can look at how education built your character by teaching you to persevere when the going got tough. Or, you could keep it broad and discuss ways education teaches character development. Either way, you can build a solid case for the importance of education to help develop and mold a child’s character.  

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

38 Argumentative Essay Topics on Education You Will Enjoy Writing

Many students love to write essays about what schools and universities should be like: this is a unique opportunity to voice their opinions about what makes part of their lives without going to a rally. Unfortunately, having a lot to say might play against you this time, as you risk writing an essay that lacks focus and thus has doom chances for an A.  Here are some great essay topics on education that will help you choose your focus and write an excellent paper.

Essay topics on the organization of the educational process

1. Can online education be compatible with a traditional one?

2. Is homeschooling compatible with/better than traditional schooling?

3. Should parents have an active role in the education of their children?

4. Does the use of computers/technology benefit the educational process?

5. Should students be allowed to use computers and tablets in classes?

6. Should video games be used in education?

7. Should students be required to wear a uniform?

8. Are single-sex classes better than mixed ones?

9. Does the class size affect the effectiveness of a teacher?

10. Should students’ knowledge be assessed with the help of exams and tests?

11. Should students be sent to the next grade even if they have not passed the current one?

12. Should students get more or less homework than they currently do?

13. Should grades exist?

14. Is higher education worth its value?

Essay topics on the content of education

15. Should a foreign language be a compulsory subject at school?

16. How school promotes patriotism and if it should (see arguments and review of quality sources in the article on  patriotism essay )

17. Should students be taught typing instead of writing?

18. Should there be parenting classes at school or university?

19. Should physical education be a compulsory subject? Should the language of coding be a compulsory subject?

20. Should students have sex education classes?

21. Should students be taught the personal lives of the prominent people of the past or their accomplishments only? (Alternatively, Should teachers silence negative traits, deeds, or habits of national heroes?)

Essay topics on state policy in relation to education

22. Should there be compulsory education funded by the state?

23. Should higher education be funded by the state?

24. Should athletic scholarships exist? Facts and reading on the topic.

25. Should homeschooling be controlled by the state?

26. Should teachers’ proficiency be regularly tested?

27. Should schools be accountable for poor achievements of students?

28. Should the state better invest in small classes or bonuses for the teachers working in large ones?

29. Should school menus be regulated?

Essay topics on school laws and policies

30. Should students’ free speech be restricted on campus?  Review of credible sources on the topic .

31. Should there be any regulation of cyberbullying?

32. Should guns be allowed at schools/on campus?

33. Should teachers or security personnel be armed?

34. Should schools be allowed to test students on drugs?

35. Should attendance/in-class performance record affect the course grade?

36. Should schools regulate what students bring for their lunches?

37. Should beauty contests be allowed at school?

38. Should public prayers or discussions of religion be banned at school?

Essay topics on education are the best choice in case you have to write an essay containing examples from your own experience or personal stories.

You may choose to write on the issue you have already formed an opinion about. This way, the essay will help you demonstrate your views on education  policies  or practices and make a stand for or against them.

However, do not skip the issues you have never thought of. When choosing a topic, consider not what you consider easy to write about, but what will be interesting to read about. Choosing an “easy” topic may turn out to be a wrong track as you may have difficulties finding credible sources to support your views.

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Why we must transform our education systems, now

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, the hon. minister david sengeh and the hon. minister david sengeh minister of education and chief innovation officer - government of sierra leone, chief innovation officer - directorate of science, technology and innovation in sierra leone @dsengeh rebecca winthrop rebecca winthrop director - center for universal education , senior fellow - global economy and development @rebeccawinthrop.

June 23, 2022

This blog summarizes the research “ Transforming education systems: Why, what, and how .”

Every single day, the challenges of global education become more daunting and more urgent. Just a few days ago on June 21, the United Nations reported that as many as 222 million school-aged children impacted by crisis require urgent educational support — this number is three times the estimates from 2016.  Furthermore, as currently reported by the World Bank and UNICEF, the portion of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries during the pandemic who could not read a simple story is estimated to have grown from about 50 percent to over 70 percent today. The poorest children and those living in remote regions have been hit the hardest. We are at a critical inflection point with hundreds of millions of children likely to miss out on a quality education in the very moment where we have to confront climate change, increasing conflict, and renewed pandemic risks. Alarm bells are being sounded and the United Nations secretary general has invited political leaders, policymakers, youth, and all stakeholders to join him at the Transforming Education Summit (TES) in New York in September 2022 to make commitments that will transform education.   

We agree that something different and transformational needs to happen now. But what does transformation mean, anyway?   

Here we share a condensed version of our perspective on how policymakers can better understand what it means and most importantly get started with making significant commitments for action. We don’t have the final answers, but we want to share the perspective of a global think tank that has studied the development of education systems over the past 100 years and a national government from a low-income country in the midst of an education transformation. You can read the full report here and the executive summary here .  

What is education system transformation?  

At its core, system transformation must entail a fresh review of the goals of our education systems. There must be a frank assessment — are the goals meeting the moment that we are in and are they owned broadly across society? If the answer is “no,” then transformation means repositioning all components of the education system to coherently contribute to a new, shared purpose.  

We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the [education] transformation journey forward wherever they are.

We propose three steps centered on purpose, pedagogy, and position that embed a participatory, inclusive approach as the key to successful transformation.  

Step 1: Start with purpose  

Education leaders, families, teachers, and students can have very different expectations about the purpose of their education system. Without a broadly shared vision in and outside of the education system, any attempt at transformation will have a slim chance of success. When education leaders do take the time to have meaningful conversations with diverse stakeholders about the goals of education, it can help pave the way for a broadly shared vision. Such a shared vision has played a key role in successful reforms in Portugal, Finland, and Canada.    

In Sierra Leone, the most recent education sector plan was developed after careful and thorough consultations with a wide group of stakeholders. In addition to the national and local government, partner countries and civil society organizations, the government has made a point of consulting previously excluded groups like the bike riders union, the market women’s associations, and traditional and religious leaders across the country. Given the deep inequality in students’ learning in Sierra Leone which was highlighted by all stakeholders, the education sector plan and strategy prioritize foundational learning not as an end goal but as the floor to give every child a chance for longer-term educational success. And the country now puts the children who are currently learning the least at the front of its efforts thanks to its Policy on Radical Inclusion in Schools.   

Step 2: (Re)design the pedagogical core  

The second step is to (re)design teaching and learning experiences to ensure students achieve the system’s stated goals. Unfortunately, redesigning education systems often results in limited results for children’s learning and development. We need to focus more on what students are expected to learn — not just how that content is delivered—and we need to pay special attention to those who are learning the least.   

Some of the most promising results that take this approach to heart in recent years come from a practice called Teaching at the Right Level. Grouping children by ability level and conducting interactive learning activities for a period of time each day is at the core of this methodology. Real-time assessments provide data needed to move students on to higher level groups as they master skills. The approach is most effective for education systems that have large numbers of students failing to master literacy and numeracy by the end of primary school and where the default teaching approach is whole group instruction, even with very large class sizes.   

In Sierra Leone, the country has joined the first cohort of World Bank Accelerator Program countries to explicitly change its pedagogical core to support foundational learning. In addition, the country has launched the Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge to generate key evidence on what can help improve learning outcomes. Several of the service providers are adopting Teaching at the Right Level to improve learning outcomes. Initial signs are positive for our learning outcomes, as even with COVID-19 disruptions, we do not have major learning losses even if no gains were made.   

Step 3: Position and align system components  

Next, the system must be positioned to support the pedagogical core across the following six components: (1) Curriculum, (2) Human resources, (3) Data and assessment, (4) Governance, (5) Funding, and (6) Engagement of “winners” and “losers” in the alignment process.  

In Sierra Leone, the government has recently updated the preprimary, basic, senior secondary, civic, and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) curricula. In addition, the country has paid special attention to using data to support the realignment behind the updated  pedagogical core while investing in teacher training at all levels.   

Before 2018, Sierra Leone had little detailed information about who its education system served and who it left out. Data collection had used paper-based questionnaires, and, as a result, data were often lagging by up to a year and scattered across multiple government departments. Sierra Leone set about digitizing its annual school census and cut the data collection time to 10 weeks. By also carefully updating the questions asked, Sierra Leone shed light on who was left out of the system. Now the Annual School Census is both gender-disaggregated and asks about the disability status of the students and the accessibility of the classrooms. Moreover, the Ministry digitized and linked education data going all the way back to 2015. This gave the Ministry a data-driven starting point for addressing disparities within the education system, and it remains a crucial component supporting its goals of developing a more inclusive system, including for pregnant girls and children with disabilities.   

What now?  

We believe that there is much to learn from history and solutions currently being implemented around the world to help us. As Minister Sengeh’s Co-Chair of the TES Advisory Committee and the Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed recently said: “This is not ‘t’ for tweaking. This is ‘T’ for Transformation.” We hope that countries and local stakeholders can use these insights to take the transformation journey forward wherever they are — and for those that are further along on the path, please do share your experiences with us and the world. We look forward to adding your learnings and lessons to the collective effort to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4—quality education for all.   

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

Center for Universal Education

Modupe (Mo) Olateju, Grace Cannon, Kelsey Rappe

June 14, 2024

Emily Markovich Morris, Laura Nóra, Richaa Hoysala, Max Lieblich, Sophie Partington, Rebecca Winthrop

May 31, 2024

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What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education

An international exam shows that American 15-year-olds are stagnant in reading and math. Teenagers told us what’s working and what’s not in the American education system.

By The Learning Network

Earlier this month, the Program for International Student Assessment announced that the performance of American teenagers in reading and math has been stagnant since 2000 . Other recent studies revealed that two-thirds of American children were not proficient readers , and that the achievement gap in reading between high and low performers is widening.

We asked students to weigh in on these findings and to tell us their suggestions for how they would improve the American education system.

Our prompt received nearly 300 comments. This was clearly a subject that many teenagers were passionate about. They offered a variety of suggestions on how they felt schools could be improved to better teach and prepare students for life after graduation.

While we usually highlight three of our most popular writing prompts in our Current Events Conversation , this week we are only rounding up comments for this one prompt so we can honor the many students who wrote in.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

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The 10 Education Issues Everybody Should Be Talking About

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What issues have the potential to define—or re define—education in the year ahead? Is there a next “big thing” that could shift the K-12 experience or conversation?

These were the questions Education Week set out to answer in this second annual “10 Big Ideas in Education” report.

You can read about last year’s ideas here . In 2019, though, things are different.

This year, we asked Education Week reporters to read the tea leaves and analyze what was happening in classrooms, school districts, and legislatures across the country. What insights could reporters offer practitioners for the year ahead?

Some of the ideas here are speculative. Some are warning shots, others more optimistic. But all 10 of them here have one thing in common: They share a sense of urgency.

Accompanied by compelling illustrations and outside perspectives from leading researchers, advocates, and practitioners, this year’s Big Ideas might make you uncomfortable, or seem improbable. The goal was to provoke and empower you as you consider them.

Let us know what you think, and what big ideas matter to your classroom, school, or district. Tweet your comments with #K12BigIdeas .

No. 1: Kids are right. School is boring.

Out-of-school learning is often more meaningful than anything that happens in a classroom, writes Kevin Bushweller, the Executive Editor of EdWeek Market Brief. His essay tackling the relevance gap is accompanied by a Q&A with advice on nurturing, rather than stifling students’ natural curiosity. Read more.

No. 2: Teachers have trust issues. And it’s no wonder why.

Many teachers may have lost faith in the system, says Andrew Ujifusa, but they haven’t lost hope. The Assistant Editor unpacks this year’s outbreak of teacher activism. And read an account from a disaffected educator on how he built a coalition of his own. Read more.

No. 3: Special education is broken.

Forty years since students with disabilities were legally guaranteed a public school education, many still don’t receive the education they deserve, writes Associate Editor Christina A. Samuels. Delve into her argument and hear from a disability civil rights pioneer on how to create an equitable path for students. Read more.

No. 4: Schools are embracing bilingualism, but only for some students.

Staff Writer Corey Mitchell explains the inclusion problem at the heart of bilingual education. His essay includes a perspective from a researcher on dismantling elite bilingualism. Read more.

No. 5: A world without annual testing may be closer than you think.

There’s agreement that we have a dysfunctional standardized-testing system in the United States, Associate Editor Stephen Sawchuk writes. But killing it would come with some serious tradeoffs. Sawchuk’s musing on the alternatives to annual tests is accompanied by an argument for more rigorous classroom assignments by a teacher-practice expert. Read more.

No. 6: There are lessons to be learned from the educational experiences of black students in military families.

Drawing on his personal experience growing up in an Air Force family, Staff Writer Daarel Burnette II highlights emerging research on military-connected students. Learn more about his findings and hear from two researchers on what a new ESSA mandate means for these students. Read more.

No. 7: School segregation is not an intractable American problem.

Racial and economic segregation remains deeply entrenched in American schools. Staff Writer Denisa R. Superville considers the six steps one district is taking to change that. Her analysis is accompanied by an essay from the president of the American Educational Research Association on what is perpetuating education inequality. Read more.

No. 8: Consent doesn’t just belong in sex ed. class. It needs to start a lot earlier.

Assistant Editor Sarah D. Sparks looked at the research on teaching consent and found schools and families do way too little, way too late. Her report is partnered with a researcher’s practical guide to developmentally appropriate consent education. Read more.

No. 9: Education has an innovation problem.

Are education leaders spending too much time chasing the latest tech trends to maintain what they have? Staff Writer Benjamin Herold explores the innovation trap. Two technologists offer three tips for putting maintenance front and center in school management. Read more.

No. 10: There are two powerful forces changing college admissions.

Some colleges are rewriting the admissions script for potential students. Senior Contributing Writer Catherine Gewertz surveys this changing college admissions landscape. Her insights are accompanied by one teacher’s advice for navigating underserved students through the college application process. Read more.

Wait, there’s more.

Want to know what educators really think about innovation? A new Education Week Research Center survey delves into what’s behind the common buzzword for teachers, principals, and district leaders. Take a look at the survey results.

A version of this article appeared in the January 09, 2019 edition of Education Week as What’s on the Horizon for 2019?

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Essay on Education System

• Updated on  
• Nov 15, 2023

The future of a country is shaped by its classrooms. Implementing a sound education system based on a holistic approach to learning is quintessential for ensuring that every student gets the best learning environment to flourish. As education is the most important and basic right, everyone should have, it is our moral duty to facilitate the perfect learning environment for our students.

With the educational journey playing the foundation role in one’s career, there are contrary views concerning the type of education system and approaches we need to take. Hence, it has become a frequently asked topic under the essay writing section in school tests as well as competitive exams. To help you with this topic, we have curated a complete guide on how to write an essay on education system, with useful tips and tricks as well as reference samples. 

This Blog Includes:

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Generally, the essay topics on education system revolve around analysing a specific education system, its strengths and weaknesses as well as suggesting the solutions for its improvement. You might also be asked about writing an essay on the Education system of India in which you must mention the characteristics of the history of our educational apparatus from the Gurukul Education System to the Current education system in India . You can also take notes from our exclusive blog on the New Education Policy formulated by India with a unique approach to academics. Further, your essay on education system must also imperatively elucidate the key aspects of the system and its salient features as well as an unbiased analysis of its strong characteristics as well as a critical overview of its weak areas where improvement is needed.

• Format – Before drafting an essay on education system, you must know about the format of essay writing. Take a look at the following pointers which elaborate upon the general format of writing structured and impressive essays
• Introduction -The education system essay introduction should provide an overview of the given topic in the introduction, i.e. highlight the recent instances or questions related to the concerned education system. When it comes to the writing style, the introduction as the first paragraph will set the tone of the whole essay thus make sure that it covers a general outline of your topic
• Body of Content – After the introduction, you can start elaborating on the topic of the education system, its role in the development of a country, its key objectives, salient features (if a specific education system is given as a topic) as well as highlight its strong and weak areas. Then, you can further assess how the education system has evolved from earlier times. For example, talk about the history of the education system, and the prominent measures that contributed to its growth, amongst others. Analyse the major points thoroughly according to the essay question and then move towards the next section
• Conclusion – The conclusion is the final section as you wrap up your essay underlining the major points you have mentioned. Avoid ending it abruptly, either go for an optimistic touch to it or just summarize what has been mentioned above

The education system in India comprises four levels: pre-primary, primary, secondary and senior secondary system; all these levels are well-structured and developed to systemically introduce students to the subject matter, develop their language and cognitive skills and prepare them for higher education. The Indian education system gives equal value to knowledge-based learning as well as co-curricular. Countries are now rigorously working on providing free access to education. Nowadays, being in school isn’t the same thing as before. Every individual is skilled in different fields and interests with a due focus on the set curriculum. We need a society that is more elevated towards balanced personal and professional growth . 

Also Read: Importance of Education in Development

Also Read: Essay on Co-education

For a nation to have harmony, the education system must focus on a holistic learning approach, i.e. provide equal educational opportunities to everyone, emphasize a wholesome curriculum as well and incorporate educational technologies to make learning a fun and interactive process. When it comes to the education system in India it is not only focused on rote learning and also pushes students towards sports , building interpersonal skills , etc. When schools were shut due to a global pandemic, Indian schools adopted online learning as the new method. There are a few drawbacks as well that the grading system starts from elementary classes and students are under the constant burden to score and pass the exams. Instead of learning something, new students become competitive to score better than the other students. The constant competition and comparison affect the mental health of all students. 

Also Read: Gurukul Education System

Also Read: Essay on Sarojini Naidu

Also Read: Essay on Online Education

The need for a well-balanced education system has become a necessity for every country as it plays a significant catalyst in its growth and development. As we know irrespective of one’s background, or family income the right to education is a necessity for everyone. Thus, the government of a nation shall work to make the system more accountable to every citizen. It should aim to enhance the features and policies as per the needs of the country so that it can contribute to the overall development as well as the growth of the economy.  Every child should get an opportunity to attend school and get educated as it is rightly said that “educated people make an educated nation”. The teachings of a sound education system help us to improve our lives in every way. For individuals, education raises self-confidence and opens opportunities for earning. On a country-wide level, it reduces the level of poverty and develops long-term economic growth.

The lack of diversity and engaging recreational activities is one of the biggest problems leading to the global crisis of illiteracy. For the developing nations, it is necessary to have ample knowledge regarding who is learning and what they are learning, so that they can mould their system in a more efficient way and hence, the future. The need for making the system reliable for children is very specific. It should aim to promote comprehensive growth which will ultimately help them in almost every aspect of life. The school and the teachers together shall prepare the children for future times. The children must know the practical aspects of what they are learning in the class. It can be easily said that students nowadays lack the ability to perform efficiently when given fundamental tasks. Thus, an education system must aim to penetrate creativity, decisiveness, communication, collaboration leadership and the spirit of teamwork.

Also Read: Women Empowerment Essay

Rooted in the ancient learnings of Vedas and Puranas, the Indian education system has come a long way from the old-school Gurukuls to the new-age hi-tech academic institutions. The students in schools and colleges are not just tested based on their learning abilities but also on their acquired knowledge and skills as well as their performance in extracurricular activities . This system is implemented in order to emphasize the importance of the overall growth of the child to broaden their horizons. The academic institutions in India, be it primary, secondary, or higher education, are embracing advanced technologies in facilitating learning and bringing a revolutionary change to the same-old classroom teaching. Many schools have brought tablets into their traditional classrooms to make learning an engaging and interesting process by teaching kids through digital applications .  

Also Read: Speech on Education for Students in English

Covid-19 has affected the world of education leading to a major shift from traditional four-walled classrooms to online classes. Online classes for online courses definitely lack the ‘personal’ touch and one-to-one interactions between teachers and students. On the contrary, traditional classrooms are less flexible and accessible to many students, especially in underprivileged communities. Attention and interaction are objective to every individual and can’t be attributed to any platform or mode of learning . Teachers and students have enhanced interaction and creative learning by using chatboxes, screen-share, whiteboards, etc. Which are useful for the presentation of images or PPTs. online classes becoming the new normal also gave the world the opportunity to make learning more flexible and accessible on a global level. It is also cost-effective since a good internet connection and a working computer is all you need to teach your class. 

Also Read: Best Schools in Delhi

The Indian education system is one of the oldest, most diverse learning systems in the world. The Indian educational system is designed to ensure a well-developed and uniform curriculum across different states for different grades in the subcontinent. Education is given utmost importance in India with schemes like free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 to 14, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign and Mid-meals in government schools to encourage students to attend school. Under the system, sports and performing arts are given the utmost significance and all students are encouraged to take part and develop a skill or expertise that will help them in the future. The Indian education system also focuses on practical learning and group activities to provide exposure and teach students the importance of teamwork and communication . The Indian education system focuses on the overall development of each student by introducing them to the basics of all the subjects from the start till the secondary level.

Also Read: Essay on Freedom: Wings of Liberation

With the rise in a lot of problems in the Indian Education System, we need a proper solution that will be effective. There is a requirement for improvement that creates a brighter future for the candidate. We can initiate a focus on skill development at the school level. Students and parents must understand that not only the ranks and grades but also the analytical and creative skills are also important. The subject taught in school must have both theory and practical teaching methods. Time-to-time syllabus update is necessary with changes with time.

This is also a high time for the government and private colleges to increase the payroll of teachers. The teachers who are working hard for the future of the students deserve more than what they are offered. The schools must hire teachers qualified teachers. The Indian Education System must change all these things. The schools must give equal opportunities to the students. The system now needs to let go of the old and traditional ways to elevate the teaching standards so our students can create a better and more advanced world.

Also Read: Best Education System in the World

• UK Education System
• Japan Education System
• German Education System
• Singapore Education System
• USA Education System
• Chinese Education System
• South Korean Education System
• Australian Education System
• French Education System
• Buddhist Education System
• Gurukul Education System
• Finland Education System
• New Zealand Education System

Relevant Blogs

A sound education system based on a holistic approach to learning is quintessential for ensuring that every student gets the best learning environment to flourish.

The best education systems in the world focus tightly on key concepts which are taught in detail at an early age and ensure that students master the basics from which to build.

The modern school system was brought to India by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay in the 1830s.

The Boston Latin School, established in 1635, was the first school.

Despite having improved over the years, the Indian education system still needs to be updated in various ways and the teaching techniques need to be revised.

Thus, we hope that this blog has helped you with the tips and tricks of essay writing on the topic education system. Unsure about finding the right course and university after completing 12th ? Our Leverage Edu counsellors are here to guide you throughout the process of finding the best program and university and sorting out the admission procedure to ensure that you send a winning application! Sign up for a free session with us today

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• Research paper
• How to Write Topic Sentences | 4 Steps, Examples & Purpose

How to Write Topic Sentences | 4 Steps, Examples & Purpose

Published on July 21, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on June 5, 2023.

Every paragraph in your paper needs a topic sentence . The topic sentence expresses what the paragraph is about. It should include two key things:

• The  topic of the paragraph
• The central point of the paragraph.

After the topic sentence, you expand on the point zwith evidence and examples.

To build a well-structured argument, you can also use your topic sentences to transition smoothly between paragraphs and show the connections between your points.

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Table of contents

Writing strong topic sentences, topic sentences as transitions between paragraphs, topic sentences that introduce more than one paragraph, where does the topic sentence go, frequently asked questions about topic sentences.

Topic sentences aren’t the first or the last thing you write—you’ll develop them throughout the writing process. To make sure every topic sentence and paragraph serves your argument, follow these steps.

Step 1: Write a thesis statement

The first step to developing your topic sentences is to make sure you have a strong thesis statement . The thesis statement sums up the purpose and argument of the whole paper.

Thesis statement example

Food is an increasingly urgent environmental issue, and to reduce humans’ impact on the planet, it is necessary to change global patterns of food production and consumption.

Step 2: Make an essay outline and draft topic sentences

Next, you should make an outline of your essay’s structure , planning what you want to say in each paragraph and what evidence you’ll use.

At this stage, you can draft a topic sentence that sums up the main point you want to make in each paragraph. The topic sentences should be more specific than the thesis statement, but always clearly related to it.

Topic sentence example

Research has consistently shown that the meat industry has a significant environmental impact .

Step 3: Expand with evidence

The rest of the paragraph should flow logically from the topic sentence, expanding on the point with evidence, examples, or argumentation. This helps keep your paragraphs focused: everything you write should relate to the central idea expressed in the topic sentence.

In our example, you might mention specific research studies and statistics that support your point about the overall impact of the meat industry.

Step 4: Refine your topic sentences

Topic sentences usually start out as simple statements. But it’s important to revise them as you write, making sure they match the content of each paragraph.

A good topic sentence is specific enough to give a clear sense of what to expect from the paragraph, but general enough that it doesn’t give everything away. You can think of it like a signpost: it should tell the reader which direction your argument is going in.

To make your writing stronger and ensure the connections between your paragraphs are clear and logical, you can also use topic sentences to create smooth transitions. To improve sentence flow even more, you can also utilize the paraphrase tool .

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As you write each topic sentence, ask yourself: how does this point relate to what you wrote in the preceding paragraph? It’s often helpful to use transition words in your topic sentences to show the connections between your ideas.

Emphasize and expand

If the paragraph goes into more detail or gives another example to make the same point, the topic sentence can use words that imply emphasis or similarity (for example, furthermore , indeed , in fact , also ).

Indeed , cattle farming alone is responsible for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions.

Summarize and anticipate

If the paragraph turns to a different aspect of the same subject, the topic sentence can briefly sum up the previous paragraph and anticipate the new information that will appear in this one.

While beef clearly has the most dramatic footprint, other animal products also have serious impacts in terms of emissions, water and land use.

Compare and contrast

If the paragraph makes a comparison or introduces contrasting information, the topic sentence can use words that highlight difference or conflict (for example, in contrast , however , yet , on the other hand ).

However , the environmental costs of dietary choices are not always clear-cut; in some cases, small-scale livestock farming is more sustainable than plant-based food production.

You can also imply contrast or complicate your argument by formulating the topic sentence as a question.

Is veganism the only solution, or are there more sustainable ways of producing meat and dairy?

Sometimes you can use a topic sentence to introduce several paragraphs at once.

All of the examples above address the environmental impact of meat-eating versus veganism. Together, they make up one coherent part of a larger argument, so the first paragraph could use a topic sentence to introduce the whole section.

In countries with high levels of meat consumption, a move towards plant-based diets is the most obvious route to making food more sustainable. Research has consistently shown that the meat industry has significant environmental impacts.

The topic sentence usually goes at the very start of a paragraph, but sometimes it can come later to indicate a change of direction in the paragraph’s argument.

Given this evidence of the meat industry’s impact on the planet, veganism seems like the only environmentally responsible option for consumers. However, the environmental costs of dietary choices are not always clear-cut; in some cases, small-scale livestock farming is more sustainable than plant-based food production.

In this example, the first sentence summarizes the main point that has been made so far. Then the topic sentence indicates that this paragraph will address evidence that complicates or contradicts that point.

In more advanced or creative forms of academic writing , you can play with the placement of topic sentences to build suspense and give your arguments more force. But if in doubt, to keep your research paper clear and focused, the easiest method is to place the topic sentence at the start of the paragraph.

View topic sentences in an example essay

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

Topic sentences help keep your writing focused and guide the reader through your argument.

In an essay or paper , each paragraph should focus on a single idea. By stating the main idea in the topic sentence, you clarify what the paragraph is about for both yourself and your reader.

The topic sentence usually comes at the very start of the paragraph .

However, sometimes you might start with a transition sentence to summarize what was discussed in previous paragraphs, followed by the topic sentence that expresses the focus of the current paragraph.

Let’s say you’re writing a five-paragraph  essay about the environmental impacts of dietary choices. Here are three examples of topic sentences you could use for each of the three body paragraphs :

• Research has shown that the meat industry has severe environmental impacts.
• However, many plant-based foods are also produced in environmentally damaging ways.
• It’s important to consider not only what type of diet we eat, but where our food comes from and how it is produced.

Each of these sentences expresses one main idea – by listing them in order, we can see the overall structure of the essay at a glance. Each paragraph will expand on the topic sentence with relevant detail, evidence, and arguments.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, June 05). How to Write Topic Sentences | 4 Steps, Examples & Purpose. Scribbr. Retrieved June 18, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/research-paper/topic-sentences/

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10 Lines on Education

If I ask you what you need the most to live a happy and successful life, your answer will probably be ‘Education’. Yes, almost everyone will support that fact, and it is true too. Let’s have some important information about Education through the sets of 10 lines below.

Ten Lines on Education in English

Below are given 10 lines, 5 lines, 20 lines, few lines and sentences on Education for students of class 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Also, people who want to know some facts on Education in short as well as in less time can read these lines. So, let’s start:

1) Education is the process which aids learning, acquiring knowledge and skills to one’s character.

2) Education upgrades the thinking of society and helps to uproot social evils.

3) It helps the uniform development of a country by fighting the inequalities of society.

4) We can have education by various methods, like teaching, training and research activities etc.

5) Storytelling is a method of education which helps to pass the knowledge from one generation to another.

6) Gurukul was the education system of ancient India when students used to learn by residing with the gurus.

7) Right to education act makes education the fundamental right of every child.

8) Education helps to earn a livelihood and fight for our basic rights.

9) Education helps to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

10) Education also plays a vital role in economic development by increasing income and decreasing poverty.

10 Lines and Sentences on Education

1) Education is a way of imparting knowledge, skills and learning.

2) It helps us to learn new things and develop a sense of innovation and creativity.

3) Education is a tool which helps us to achieve success and earn respect in the society.

4) There are primarily four stages of education, namely, preschool, primary, secondary and higher education.

5) School, College and Gurukul are the media of imparting education.

6) The Right to Education Act, 2009 has made education free and compulsory for the children of age 6-14 years.

7) The mode of education has changed by the advent of new technologies.

8) The rise of affordable internet has made education easy and accessible to every corner of the world.

9) Interactive learning approach has made the availability of education at the comfort of your home.

10) Education is a guiding force which helps us in identifying our career goal and leading a civilized life.

5 Lines on Education

1) Education is the process of learning.

2) Education helps us to develop skills.

3) An educated person is respected everywhere.

4) Education helps to attain success in life.

5) Education is the right of every citizen.

20 Lines on Education

1) Education helps to provide knowledge, develop a logical attitude and enhance the capability of an individual.

2) A country with educated citizens will always have people with logical thinking and views.

3) In democratic countries, education plays a crucial role in choosing the right government.

4) Education helps in the physical, social, mental and spiritual development of an individual.

5) It also enhances the social and moral values of a person and makes him more sensible, tolerant, helpful and empathic.

6) It modifies and enhances the behaviour of a person through rigorous learning and development.

7) Education helps in eradicating poverty and bringing equality in society.

8) It is a way of giving an intellectual channel to the decision-making capabilities of the citizens of a country.

9) The development in the fields of arts, science, technology etc. is only possible because of education.

10) Education prepares the children for the future so that they can contribute towards the development.

11) Education makes a person self-reliant and independent in social, financial and intellectual aspects.

12) In ancient India, education was for everyone, but it became available based on the caste and duties.

13) Nalanda and Taxila were the most famous educational institutions of ancient times.

14) No one can steal education, so it remains with us always and never goes waste.

15) In India, there are majorly three types of schools as Government Schools, Government Aided Private Schools and Private Schools.

16) Government of India has launched various initiatives in the field of education like Udaan, Saksham, Pragati etc.

17) These initiatives have majorly helped to improve the status and quality of education in India.

18) The development of science and technology has also changed the way of getting an education.

19) Nowadays, there are various techniques and methods to impart education like e-learning, video-based learning etc.

20) Education has always been a driving force for mankind.

We cannot avoid the importance and need for education in the modern world, where education is the deciding factor in all aspects of life. Education teaches us basic ethics and values, which help us to structure your complete personality. Education is for everyone, and we should provide it without any discrimination.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Education

Ans. O ne of the best educational systems in the world is in the United States. The QS World University Rankings 2023 says that 36 universities in the United States are among the top 150.

Ans. India’s educational system currently occupies the 33rd position on the global scale.

Ans. People call Dehradun the “school capital of India” because there are so many schools.

Ans. The United States is at the top of the list because it has so many excellent universities and a well-developed system for higher education.

Ans. South Korea, Singapore, Japan, are the few countries which have one of the hardest education systems around the world.

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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

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Education System Design: Foundations, Policy Options and Consequences

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The U.S. Educational System

One of the most attractive features of the U.S. higher education system is the flexibility it provides through the number and diversity of institution types it encompasses. 

This diversity offers students options to specialize in a variety of academic disciplines and even gain employment training.

Nearly 4,000 accredited institutions make up U.S. higher education in the United States. Unlike many countries, U.S. higher education institutions are not centrally organized or managed, but are accredited on a national or regional level by independent accrediting bodies. 

A variety of institution types offer higher-education degrees. Liberal arts institutions, for example, offer courses in the arts, humanities, languages, and social and physical sciences. The majority of liberal arts institutions are private. Private colleges and universities are funded by a combination of endowments, gifts from alumni, research grants, and tuition fees. Private colleges and universities are usually smaller than public institutions and can have a religious affiliation or be single-sex schools.

Not sure what certain U.S. higher education words mean? Click here for definitions.

Community colleges are another option and provide two-year associate degree programs to prepare students to continue studies for an undergraduate degree or help them gain occupational skills for immediate employment. State colleges and universities, also called "public universities," were founded and subsidized by U.S. state governments to provide a low-cost education to residents of that state. Public universities generally offer access to research opportunities and classes in a wide variety of fields of study. These universities tend to be very large and generally admit a wider range of students than private universities. Each student's interests will guide his/her choice among the many possibilities. 

Regardless of the institution type, in the United States, students typically earn credits for courses they take and these credits count towards the completion of a program. Courses are often divided into "core" subject areas to provide the foundation of the degree program and "major" courses to provide specialization in a subject area. Students can also take "elective" courses to explore other topics of interest for a well-rounded educational experience.

The U.S. academic calendar typically runs from September to May and can be divided into two academic terms of 16-18 weeks known as semesters. Alternatively, some schools may operate on a quarter or trimester system of multiple terms of 10-12 weeks.

With the variety of available U.S. higher education options, students are sure to find the right fit for their academic, financial, and personal needs.

More questions? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page. 

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Paragraph on Education 100, 150, 200, 250 to 300 Words for Kids, Students, and Children

February 7, 2024 by Prasanna

Paragraph on Education:  Education is the basic necessity of life. It is an integral tool that aids the overall growth and development. Education has a plethora of meanings and educates and empowers you within the four walls of the classroom as well as imbibe in your environment. Learning is an education that makes sense, and it needs awareness to reach the remote corners of the country.

You can read more  Paragraph Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Paragraph on Education – 100 Words for Classes 1, 2, 3 and Kids

Education refers to ‘the process of providing and receiving instructions, through academic and scholastic efforts.’ Education is a process that begins at home. It differentiates humans from other living things.

Education disciplines and develops both academic performances as well as curricular activities. A person learns to read, write, speak, practice activities, and learn various skills through Education. Education makes a person independent and self-sufficient.

Learning is a part of Education and can be learned from anyone around us, even from an ant, who teaches us to try until we achieve success. Therefore, one needs to adapt, learn, and educate oneself to become knowledgeable.

Paragraph on Education – 150 Words for Classes 4 and 5 Children

Education is a process of learning through which we acquire knowledge. It enlightens, empowers, and creates a positive development. Education gives an individual the knowledge and skills to work with virtue. It aids the all-round mental, physical, and intellectual growth and development of an individual.

There are three distinct types of Education- Formal Education, Non-Formal Education, and Informal Education. Education aims to change the way of one’s thinking. Academic knowledge provides one leaning on a global scale, while Practical knowledge is acquired for life on the whole.

Education is imparted to all, at various research and academic institutions, imparted by teachers, professors, and trainers.These institutions conduct various curricular activities that aid the overall growth and development of students.

Education boosts and develops the commercial scenario as well as benefits the overall economy of the country. Higher the level of education, the better are the chances of development. Therefore, it is highly important to educate the children and youth to live a productive life and help in the development of society and the nation.

Paragraph on Education – 200 Words for Classes 6, 7, and 8 Students

Education is a doorway to success. It is the key that unlocks multiple doors of vast opportunities that leads to the pathway of success.

Education is a highly essential tool that helps you irrespective of the age- whether you are a child or a grown-up. Education is a class of learning and is achieved through the four walls of the school as well as at the playground. Every situation and activity we see or experience teaches us something.

Education opens the door of opportunities for an individual to choose. It imparts our perception and directs us the right path with multiple viewpoints and opens the runways the success.

Education can help an individual in multiple ways. It plays an important role in the overall growth and development of an individual. Determination of learning can also make an individual an all-rounder. A person’s knowledge and the way to think from multiple perspectives can also make them perform a unique way.

For instance, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s way of thinking was his imagination. He imagined a flying machine in the form of a bird, which was earlier discussed by his science teacher. Thus, Education broadens our imagination and promotes our way of thinking.

Education also plays a significant role which, ensures the development and growth of a nation. If people are accessed to education, they can understand their respective rights and duties. For the upliftemnt of the society, each individual should understand others. If people understand each other and their perspectives, a country stays united.

Paragraph on Education – 250 to 300 Words for Classes 9, 10, 11, 12, and Competitive Exams Students

Education is the backbone of a country. It is an integral tool that aids the development of human civilization. Education equips the nation with the workforce, uplifts awareness among the general public, and promotes national unity.

A life without education is valueless. Education makes oneself-sufficient, knowledgeable, intelligent, independent and boosts self-confidence. It enhances our thought process and enables us to do things creatively and correctly.

Education promotes national unity through the contributions of the diverse workforce such as Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, Judges, Administrative officials, Teachers, Economists, and other technical hands.

John Amos Comenius is crowned as the ‘Father of Modern Education’, who put forth various kinds and forms of education. According to John Amos, education is not confined within the classrooms. He has written various education theories, methods, and systems which states that illusions as students cannot be learned only by reading.

Education develops a person’s sense of articulation and respect in their vocabulary. However, an individual can be educated, but it lacks the courtesy to respect others and their perspectives, or fail to follow certain rules of a particular place, he is titled as an illiterate. Education develops responsibility so that an individual can understand and apply to gain value.

It is important to create awareness among every individual, even in the remotest corner of the society for the need for Education. The Government of India has formulated the Right to Education Act. The 86th Amendment of Article 21-A, states that free and compulsory education to all children that fall between six to fourteen is a fundamental right.

Education disciplines a child builds them as responsible citizens, and aids in becoming a civilized society. Thus, think and bring a change in the community and make education worth it.

FAQ’s on Paragraph on Education

Question 1. What is Education?

Answer: Education refers to ‘the process of providing and receiving instructions, through academic and scholastic efforts.’ It is a process of learning through which we acquire knowledge, enlightenment, empowerment, and positive development.

Question 2. How does Education help succeed in life?

Answer: Education offers multiple job opportunities, changes our perception of life, and broadens our imagination and promotes our way of thinking.

Question 3. Who is called as the ‘Father of Modern Education’?

Answer: John Amos Comenius is known as the ‘Father of Modern Education, who put various kinds and forms of education.

Question 4. Which provision of law ensures Education?

Answer: The Government of India has formulated the Right to Education Act. The 86th Amendment of Article 21-A, states that free and compulsory education to all children that fall between six to fourteen is a fundamental right.

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Essay on Indian Education System for Students and Children

500+ words essay on indian education system for students and children.

The Indian education system is quite an old education system that still exists. It has produced so many genius minds that are making India proud all over the world. However, while it is one of the oldest systems, it is still not that developed when compared to others, which are in fact newer. This is so as the other countries have gone through growth and advancement, but the Indian education system is still stuck in old age. It faces a lot of problems that need to be sorted to let it reach its full potential.

Problems with Indian Education System

Our Indian education system faces a lot of problems that do not let it prosper and help other children succeed in life . The biggest problem which it has to face is the poor grading system. It judges the intelligence of a student on the basis of academics which is in the form of exam papers. That is very unfair to students who are good in their overall performance but not that good at specific subjects.

Moreover, they only strive to get good marks not paying attention to understanding what is taught. In other words, this encourages getting good marks through mugging up and not actually grasping the concept efficiently.

Furthermore, we see how the Indian education system focuses on theory more. Only a little percentage is given for practical. This makes them run after the bookish knowledge and not actually applying it to the real world. This practice makes them perplexed when they go out in the real world due to lack of practical knowledge.

Most importantly, the Indian education system does not emphasize enough on the importance of sports and arts. Students are always asked to study all the time where they get no time for other activities like sports and arts.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

How Can We Improve Indian Education System?

As the Indian Education System is facing so many problems, we need to come up with effective solutions so it improves and creates a brighter future for students . We can start by focusing on the skill development of the students. The schools and colleges must not only focus on the ranks and grades but on the analytical and creative skills of children.

In addition, subjects must not be merely taught theoretically but with practical. This will help in a better understanding of the subject without them having to mug up the whole thing due to lack of practical knowledge. Also, the syllabus must be updated with the changing times and not follow the old age pattern.

Other than that, the government and private colleges must now increase the payroll of teachers. As they clearly deserve more than what they offer. To save money, the schools hire teachers who are not qualified enough. This creates a very bad classroom environment and learning. They must be hired if they are fit for the job and not because they are working at a lesser salary.

In conclusion, the Indian education system must change for the better. It must give the students equal opportunities to shine better in the future. We need to let go of the old and traditional ways and enhance the teaching standards so our youth can get create a better world.

FAQs on Indian Education System

Q.1 What problems does the Indian Education System face?

A.1 Indian education is very old and outdated. It judges students on the basis of marks and grades ignoring the overall performance of the student. It focuses on academics side-lining arts and sports.

Q.2 How can we improve the Indian education system?

A.2 The colleges and schools must hire well and qualified teachers. They must help students to understand the concept instead of merely mugging up the whole subject.

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161 Online Education Topics and Essay Examples

🏆 best research title examples about online class, 💡 most interesting online learning topics to write about, 📚 good online education topics for presentation, 🌐 catchy titled for online learning essay, 💻 online class research titles, ❓ research topics about online classes.

• Online Classes Vs. Traditional Classes Essay The essay shall endeavor to examine the differences between online classes and the traditional classes, with a preference for the later.
• Benefits of Online Learning This knowledge and skill one gains from online help the person to intermingle with others in a better way, progress their profession, or develop their business successfully.
• The Importance of Online Learning For this purpose, it is possible to conduct classes in real-time, when they can ask and receive the opinion of others.
• Traditional vs. Distance Learning Systems On the other hand, in online learning, the students partake learning individually, and in some cases, students doing the same course in the same college do not even get to know each other.
• Distance Learning: Advantages and Limitations All three articles cover the topic of distance learning in the context of the coronavirus and everyday practice. Speaking of the advantages of distance learning, the author suggests that remote learning may not be ideal […]
• How to Succeed in Online Classes The time you attend the class has to coincide with the time of day when your brain is also most receptive to the information it receives.
• Strengths and Weaknesses of Online Learning Amidst that confusion, it would be important to take a deep look into the subject and see the disadvantages and the advantages of online learning.
• Comparison of Stress Level Among Traditional Learning and Online Learning College Students The distance learners have been perceived to be enjoying a suitable environment of learning as opposed to the traditional classroom learners who experience high levels of stress.
• Virtual Learning: Yes and No Argumentation The argument stems from the quality of the education that can be received via the internet and what the drawbacks are once there is no physical contact between students and the professors.
• Online Learning and Classroom Learning Combining the two concepts then, we can define e-learning “as a learning environment that exists solely in the form of digital content that is stored, accessed and exchanged through networked computer and information systems” The […]
• Personal Reflections for the MBA Distance Learning I was able to concentrate on various subjects, complete assignments, and liaise with different instructors throughout the learning process. The approach made the learning process desirable and capable of supporting my aims.
• Zoom for Online Learning Updates During the pandemic, the zoom was and is still the most downloaded App in the USA and globally compared to others.
• The Impact of Distance Learning on the Mental State The argument of the supporters of the first perspective is based on the fact that online education reduces the ability of students to concentrate and deteriorates overall motivation.
• Administrative Progressivism in Relation to Online Learning The main idea of the discussion is to consider online learning from the perspective of administrative progressivism with identifying the advantages and disadvantages of using the mentioned approach along with the chosen method of study.
• Online Learning in Vocational Education and Training There are different variations in the process of learning on the basis of the types of combination and integration with the other technologies used for the teaching and learning process.
• The Roles of Families in Virtual Learning By analyzing the various roles that families play in virtual learning, the authors demonstrate that family involvement and support are critical to the success of their children The authors begin by discussing the impact of […]
• Distance Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic The radical transition from the traditional system of obtaining knowledge to virtual education actualizes research related to the analysis of the specifics and dysfunctions of distance learning.
• The Need for Online Learning at St. Francis Elementary School This has led to the need to design an online learning platform suitable for interactive and critical learning experiences by the tutors and their learners.
• Online Learning Perception and Effectiveness While the solution allowed students to access information and continue their studies, there was apprehension in regard to the efficacy of online learning and the outcomes such shifts have on students’ academic performances.
• Distance Learning of Forest Management Considering that the goal of the research was to analyze the results and implications of a practical approach to the forest management course engagement and e-learning development, most information was derived from the expert team […]
• A Distance Learning Program: Strategies for Successful Starting or Expanding An institution has to identify the most appropriate communication tools and media to be used by students and teachers in a distance learning program.
• Starting and Expanding Distance Learning Program Therefore, decision-makers must grapple with the problem of distant learning planning, as institutions are caught between the desire to serve students online and the requirement to maintain traditional student services.
• Factors for Teachers’ Motivation in Distance Learning Efficient communication with the administration of an institution is a crucial factor that affects the motivation of teachers in distance learning.
• Pros and Cons of Distance Education On the one hand, modernization of education allows it to expand the usual boundaries of transmitting and receiving information in the educational process while retaining all the integral components.
• Rhetorical Analysis of the Distance Education The essay can be addressed both to the children and parents for whom the issues of health and psychology are important.
• Distance Learning Experiences of In-Service Music Teachers From Puerto Rico The study explores the experiences of in-service music teachers in distance learning. This paper examines the motivations of in-service teachers in distance learning.
• Design Thinking for Online Learning Project In this paper, attention will be paid to the problem of a lack of engagement with online learning and a reflection on design thinking as its solution.
• Maximizing the Effectiveness of Online Learning Flipped learning allows the teacher to provide the greatest amount of time for direct interaction with students, which is especially important in the framework of online learning.
• New Online Learning Platform: Market Analysis The goal of online education is to enhance the knowledge of people who want to pursue a particular career for a fee that is lesser when compared to offline studies in Universities.
• Software Engineering Online Learning Center However, it is not easy to tell what the website is promoting just by the look of the homepage and thus, visitors with less time might not be interested to click to the sub-sections and […]
• Distance Education Problem Overview Generally, distance education can be evaluated as a binary prospect: on one hand, it presents a row of advantages for the people who are busy with their work and family duties, and on the other […]
• Negotiation: Distance Learning and Social Change The conflict that arises, in this case, is that the Pirates are demanding ransom money from the owners of the tanker in order to release it and its crew. The essay has given a detailed […]
• Online Learning in Jordan Universities: Effectiveness and Obstruction For the quality learning process, e-learning has been developed to use different approaches to ease the process of learning. E-learning is a novel idea in most of the Arab world and it has come with […]
• Online Learning Institutions and Courses This account allows you to access the online learning institutions library. Which are the most reliable online learning institutions?
• Professional Development Methods: Distance Education Technologies Professional development at universities has included methods to assist faculty in improving course design and educational methods, as well as in becoming familiar with and applying educational technologies, such as distance education tools. These centers […]
• Distance Education vs Traditional Institutions Though both foreign and traditional education institutions provide knowledge and skills to students in order to enable them become competent in their profession, the institutions vary in the quality of degree courses they provide to […]
• Distance Learning Fulfilling Education Purpose Distance learning mode of education, which is a kind of education that takes place when the teachers and the students are separated by space and time, does not entirely serve the purpose of education. The […]
• Distributed and Distance Learning Systems It is a system that can be of great impact to the researchers this is because one is able to get information that will help him or her get a cue for that group that […]
• Social Constructivism in Cooperative and Distance Learning As opposed to the behaviorist view of learning which gives more importance to the imitation aspects of the learner in the learning process, this constructivist theory gives greater room for the active interaction of the […]
• Online Learning and Learning Behaviours In such a way, the main reason for the creation of this project is the increased popularity of online learning and the need for the in-depth investigation of this phenomenon because of its increased demand.
• Nurses and Virtual Learning Environments: Understanding Limits in Nursing Education Despite the expected benefits and improvements in nursing education due to the use of virtual learning environments, this practice may create a number of challenges for students and teachers.
• Online Learning Design Specifications The rapid rise of technologies and the evolution of communication means resulted in the appearance of new approaches to the learning process.
• Innovative Social Networking in Online High School The preparedness of the school is also critical towards the success of this innovative technology. The school should also examine the benefits and bottlenecks of the new technology.
• Online Class and Its Outcome Measurement The focus of the paper will be on the aspect of public evaluation while considering what was involved while evaluating the impact on the class. Therefore, these are some of the outcome measures that can […]
• Online Classes for High School Students I wish to submit to you that the need for extra input in terms of study has caused many parents to enroll their children in online study classes to supplement the knowledge they get from […]
• Online Learning Environments The questions will be posted to the group by the instructor. The learners are likely to face a number of challenges in the course of the module.
• Evaluating Online Learning Tools The learners can be referred to reliable wikis and blogs to integrate the ideas learnt from the class. In this manner, the desires of people to learn are not limited by distance and time.
• Online Learning Principles and Objectives In this way, the students will not only argue the purposes and significance of the course to their life, but also create an interactive session among the students and their instructor. As the instructor, I […]
• Online Learning Space Creating Process On the other hand, a community of practice has been known to mean a crowd of people who are in the same career or share the same interest.
• Distance Learning and Virtual High School This implies that district schools in lines with virtual High school are of much importance to both the educators and students.
• Distance Education: Best Practices and Approaches The study with the use of a case-based learning system undertaken by Cifuentes, Mercer, Alverez, and Bettati in 2010 demonstrated that students could remotely participate in the learning process without the need to be physically […]
• Learning Objectives Implementation With the advent of the internet, online courses have sprouted resulting in the debate on the two options, traditional class setting, and the online class.
• The Importance of Virtual Learning Communities The learning communities enable the instructors and the students to volunteer their questions. The virtual learning communities enable online degree programs to give students autonomy over the learning process.
• Distance Learning and Its Evolution Definitions of distance education are varied and diverse, but the main concept of distance learning can be summarized from the situation wherein the student and the educator are separated by distance and time and the […]
• Online Learning and Innovations in Pedagogy On the other hand, computer-based learning can be understood as a learning environment in which computers are used to mediate between learners and content without necessarily being online.
• Efficient Interaction in Distance Learning Classroom The problem is that the number of enrolments in the online form of education is augmenting, even as the knowledge regarding the factors that influence the effectiveness of distance education continues to be scarce.
• Virtual Learning Environments: Effective Use Tutors often face the challenge of effective delivery of lessons in the classroom given the diverse categories of students. Learning objects basically refer to blocks of content that can be interlinked to produce a course.
• Using Wikis to Encourage Online Classes Collaborative Work The problem is that the entire process seems to ignore the relevance of enabling students to interact and share their ideas in the learning environment.
• Technology Acceptance Model of Online Learning The findings of the study demonstrate the effectiveness of external variables related to online learning environments in predicting the ability of users to adopt online learning community.
• Formulating an Online Learning Course Reviewing is done from the student side where a person analyzes the content and readability of the information contained in the online learning program.
• Tone Impact in Distance Education Thus, in this paper, the tone will refer to the tone the instructor implies in the text material and the tone of conversations between the instructors and the students.
• Ethical Issues in Online Learning The online assessment methods should consider the ethical issues arising from the learning process. The assessment methods should be able to prevent all forms of dishonesty during the learning process.
• Virtual Learning Environment: Concord Consortium The problem is that this capitalization can be perceived as sign of rudeness, and it can make reluctant to take part in the discussion. Provided that a teacher can promote the involvement of students, they […]
• High School of Virtual Learning Environment The aim will be to see incorporation of the system, the opportunities, and the challenges faced while using Virtual Learning Environment.
• Transition From Traditional Education to Online Learning The speed of information transfer at any time and anywhere through the internet makes online learning relatively cheap compared to the traditional education system.
• Distance Learning OL and Interactive Video in Higher Education The two-way communication systems as well as the need to interact ‘physically’ between and among the participants are what propelled the adoption of this mode of learning.
• Distance Learning Foundational Concepts Another problem that arises as a result of distance learning is the lack of face to face or one on one contact between teachers or instructors and their students.
• Convenience and Flexibility of the Online Classes The advantage of online courses for full or part-time employed individuals is that you can plan how you take your courses. Online classes also introduce students to a variety of web-based tools and techniques that […]
• Concept of Distance Learning in Modern Education System The accessibility of the distance learning courses mainly depend on the awareness of the instructor to the accessibility issues and how the instructor can best handle the course with consideration of accessibility.
• Changes in Learning and Motivation With the Advent of Online Learning Institutions of learning have introduced online learning through improvement of infrastructure, incorporation of new technologies in learning, recruitment of professionals who are conversant with new technologies, and revision of curriculums in order to accommodate new […]
• Creating Student Engagement in Online Learning Environment To contribute to creating and stimulating student engagement in online learning environments, it is important to focus on such factors as the increase of students’ motivation, focus on independent and inquiry-based learning, the active role […]
• Online Learning Is a Superior Form of Education This paper will argue that online learning is a superior form of education since it helps students and learning institutes to overcome limitations imposed by the traditional learning environment.
• Contrasting an Online Class to a Traditional Class In most cases, the traditional class syllabus is usually a bit wider hence offering the trainee much more as opposed to online classes where there is lack of provisions for diversification of the subject.
• Comparison of Online Learning and Traditional Learning
• Historical and Socio Cultural Analysis of Online Learning
• Analysis of Using Online Video Lecture on Learning Outcome: The Mediating Role of Student Interaction and Student Engagement
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning in an Online Class
• Analysis of the Cyber School as an Institution With Online Methods of Learning
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Problems with the education system (learning collocations)

• Global Issues
• Collocations

Vocabulary - learning

LESSON OVERVIEW

The lesson is divided into three parts: vocabulary, listening comprehension and debate. It focuses on the flaws of the public education system and what it really teaches children. Students will have to consider such questions as what’s wrong with the schooling system , how could it be improved? This lesson focuses on these questions and involves learning collocations , watching a video and ends with a group debate.

VOCABULARY – LEARNING COLLOCATIONS

In the Vocabulary part of the lesson, students will not only just learn new words but also their collocations. Learning collocations is important as students get to know how to use new words in context and apply them effectively in practice. In the first task, students need to complete four mind maps which include  collocations with learning, aptitude, skills and competence . What follows is an exercise with a few questions for students to discuss, where students will have an opportunity to use newly learned phrases.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

The next section consists of a listening comprehension task in which students need to decide which six statements are closest to the issues discussed in the video titled “6 Problems with our School System” by Next School. Some sentences are very close so remind your students to listen carefully. Afterwards, students need to collaborate in pairs to decide which 4 issues (out of all the statements) are most problematic for the education system.

DEBATE ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

Finally, the last part is a debate . Divide your students into small groups (4-6 people) and ask them to prepare arguments for and against the debate points. I recommend deciding upfront which group should debate in favour or against each point to make sure that everybody is happy and keep the conversations going. Remind students that after learning collocations they need to start using them, this debate is a perfect opportunity to do so.

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Great source ever !It is really useful to practice Vocabulary

Thanks! Great to hear that 🙂

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Education Vocabulary: Word Lists and Pronunciation

This is the essential vocabulary for education about schools, subjects, studying and university. There is an audio to listen to the pronunciation of the words. These are the most common words and collocations which you will need to learn in order to talk or write about school or university successfully. After each section of vocabulary, there are exercises for you to practice using the words.

Click here to download the PDF version of this page:  Education Vocabulary PDF . Please note that the PDF does not contain the answers – you must check your answers on this page.

Educational Institutions

• kindergarten = pre-school education
• primary school
• secondary school
• college = further education
• higher education = university education = tertiary education
• post-graduate school = university for students studying beyond degree level

School Subjects

• natural science
• religious studies
• information technology (IT)
• physical education (PE)
• cookery = domestic / food science
• handicrafts

Vocabulary Exercises: School Subjects

• One of the reasons that I didn’t like ……………… was because of the lab work which sometimes involved dissection.
• I’ve always enjoyed learning about how chemicals react with one another so I decided to choose …………. as one of my main subjects.
• When I was a child, we practiced ………………… three times a week which was fine in summer but was freezing during the winter when you have to football or hockey outside.
• My teacher encouraged us to take part in ……………………… in order to develop skills beyond what is taught in scheduled lessons.
• I used to find complicated calculations difficult as well as algebra but when we got a new ………… teacher, it all become much easier to understand.
• One of my favourite subjects was …………………… because you had a chance to get out of the classroom and learn more about the environment.
• Teachers were really strict on ……………… in exams. The exam invigilators won’t even let you have your bag in the exam room.
• Poetry should be taught more in ………………. lessons in order to help students develop a deeper understanding of their language and culture.
• I always loved studying maps. We spent a lot of time in our ……………. lessons tracing the borders of countries and learn the capital cities of different countries.
• My worst subject at school was …………… because I was completely tone deaf.
• physical education
• extra curricular activities
• math’s

Useful Language & Collocations

• lab work = laboratory experiments
• dissection = cutting up animals for scientific research
• scheduled lessons = lessons which are planned and written into a school curriculum
• algebra = formulas and equations in mathematics
• to give out or assign homework / to do or complete homework
• to complete high school / to graduate high school
• to do, to participate or to take part in school activities or sport
• tracing = copying, outlining in pencil
• tone deaf = without an ear for music = unable to appreciate or hear different music and notes

Types of Schools – Same-Sex & Co-Ed Schools

Watch this video to learn the advantages or single-sex schools and the plus points of mixed schools. This video contains ideas and vocabulary to help you express your ideas clearly.

University Vocabulary

University Courses

• BA / BSc = Bachelor of Arts Degree / Bachelor of Science Degree
• MA / MSc = Masters of Arts / Masters of Science
• PhD = Doctorate

Other Courses

• Certificate = a lower level qualification often offered at colleges rather than universites. This is also the word used the for documentation received for completing any type of course or degree (she received her certificate for her BA degree).
• Online Course
• Distance Learning Course
• Vocational course = a course which teaches you skills for a specific job, for example engineering.
• Non-vocational course = a course which is not related to a job but to a general subject instead, such as Biology.

Useful Verbs & Nouns for University

• to graduate from a university = complete a degree course / to finish university
• to enroll on a degree course = put your name down for a degree course
• to major in physics = to choose physics as your main subject at university
• to attend a lecture = to go to listen to a speaker at university often with a large audience in a lecture theatre
• to attend a tutorial = to go to a meeting with a professor usually in small group held in his/her office
• deliver a lecture = to give a talk or presentation
• to lecture in media studies = to talk about media studies or to teach media studies at university
• the faculty of business = a department specialising in business at university
• to read history = to study history
• to do or complete coursework = doing project work or assignments as part of your course
• undergraduate (n) = someone currently doing their first degree
• graduate (n)  = someone who has completed a degree course
• note-taking = being able to take notes in a lecture while the lecturer is talking
• keeping up with the work load = being able to maintain the level of studying required
• fall behind with studies = fail to keep pace with the school / university work

University Work

• presentations
• dissertation
• project work

Vocabulary Exercises: Universities

Complete the following sentences are university education using no more than one word.

• People who have ……….. from university stand a better chance of finding a good job.
• I hope to enroll ………. a degree in law next year in the UK.
• There is a lot of competition to get a ……………….. but without it I won’t be able to afford the universities fees.
• One of the keys to successful  ……………. is knowing where to look for information and how to judge which information is most current and relevant. Knowing the best sources of materials is essential.
• scholarship

Other Useful Vocabulary for Education

• literate = to be able to read and write
• illiterate = unable to read and write
• the literacy rate = the percentage of people in a country or region able to read and write
• comprehensive education = a well-rounded, broad education covering a variety of subjects
• scholarship = an award of either free or supported education for high achievers
• student loan = money taken by a student to pay for their education which they must pay back after graduating
• pay off a student loan = to repay money borrowed for university education
• intensive course = a course which runs over a short period of time but contains a lot of information and training
• play truant / truancy = not attending school / being absent from school without permission
• gap year = to take a year out between high school and university

Vocabulary Exercises: Useful Education Vocabulary

Complete the sentences using no more than two words.

• The rate of …………… is higher in developed countries than in under developed countries.
• Schools should offer a ………………… which includes subjects relating to all minority groups.
• The rise in university fees has led to a large proportion of students taking out ………………… which can often be difficult to pay back.
• Students who take a …………… often find it difficult to get back into their studies again.
• Rather than the government offering free university education for all people, they should, instead, ensure that a certain number of gifted individuals receive a ……………….
• comprehensive education
• student loans

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Hi Liz. I am Andre Fatur from Indonesia. i would say thank you cause i have a lot of knowledge about vocabulary in Education.

I’m glad it was helpful 🙂

Hi Liz , i’m really glad that i found your website and actually one of my teachers showed me you . your vocabs and the voices you have for them is the best specially for the ones who aren’t local englishman and are learning english as a second one just like me . me and my friends see your videos every session in our class . I wish you all the best

So glad you enjoy my lessons 🙂 Best wishes to you and your classmates 🙂

Great. Thank you so much, it help me a lot. Stay blessed

You’re welcome 🙂

Its a great help. Thank you so much Liz. May god bless you with all happiness…

I’m glad it’s helpful 🙂

Hi I am currently enrolled in school for nursing and I feel very uncomfortable when it comes to my vocabulary, I had brain surgery twice & suffered with seizures for 3years, I am happy to say I am better now and the Tumor is gone completely ,however I am depressed when it comes to my vocabulary because I don’t remember much at all and I often get my words mixed up when speaking so this is a big deal for me to learn and expand my vocabulary, thank you but I have no clue of where to begin at this point. I love to read so I have been reading a lot on your website, I must say I have learned some information just reading the comments. what do you suggest? thanks (my name is MINDY)

Hi Mindy, I do sympathise. I know what it is like to have language impairment due to neurological problems. The key is to take it slow and start incorporating the new words in your daily language until they become part of your natural English. Try my ideas e-book – it includes useful vocabulary and ideas for over 150 essay topics (which are also speaking topics). It’s on 55% discount this week: https://elizabethferguson.podia.com/ . There’s also a grammar e-book which might help a lot as it also contains great vocab. But don’t rush through it. Aim to absorb 70% of the vocab for each topic. Use those words daily by a) speaking to yourself about the topic – express your thoughts, have debates with yourself b) write an essay about it c) read further on google about the topic. Continue to repeat this until some words stick in your mind. Then repeat the process over and over again. The other thing I want to you do is not push yourself and do NOT give yourself any pressure or fixed goals. The learning must be natural and come from the pleasure of learning. Learn for enjoyment, not because you have a goal. This will make a huge difference. The harder you push yourself, the further away your goal often gets. Do small amounts each day and no more. Take breaks as often as you need. To learn IELTS exam techniques, see my Advanced Lessons in my store and also review all my free lessons and tips. I hope this helps. Good luck 🙂

Thank you very much Liz. I always follow your IELTS lesson to use not only for myself but also for my students. All your materials are helpful to improve my English for an IELTS exam. All the best.

Glad my site is useful. Wishing you all well 🙂

Thanks a million for the strenuous efforts you exerted.

I admire you how Being a good teacher. You are the best, no need to follow others for IELTS . love Zeliha

Thanks for your kind comment 🙂 I hope your IELTS preparation is going well 🙂

Lovely ! Thanks a lot Liz.

What does it mean “I can’t stress enough” ?

It means I am stressing the importance of something. It is an expression in English 🙂

Many thanks!

That’s an awsome work! I really admire ur job here 🙂

You are so important to us that I can` just thank you enough.

THANKS A LOT!

Hi Liz! I have a plan to do the academic IELTS test , I live in the UK , in the speeking test if I used contraction or words like ,wanna ,gonna would that be acceptable or I have to say Iam going ,Cannot etc…

See this page for your answer: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-speaking-free-lessons-essential-tips/ . All main pages are accessed through the RED BAR at the top of the website.

Hello Liz, Please I am a stay-at-home mom so I’d like to know how to construct my answer when I’m asked to talk about my work. please note that i have worked as a consultant in an agricultural firm, but i was made redundant.

IELTS speaking is not a trick test. It is an informal chat with the examiner. Just be open, honest and chatty: “I used to work as a consultant in an agricultural firm, but now I’m a stay-at-home Mom.”. When you give this answer, the examiner will note your use of two grammar tenses and good vocabulary. The examiner will then decide whether to continue to talk about your work in the past, or change it and talk about your home. This will be the examiner’s choice – the examiner makes the decisions of topics. So, be open, friendly and chatty at all times.

You are really touching lives. Thank you sooo much.

Indeed she is!

Thank you so much Liz , I find this lesson really helpful .

It is the first time I access there. It involves a wide range of vocabulary. Thanka to all the leaders

In my point of view, there is no subject name MATHS. It is Mathematics and we call it as math.

The word “math” is US English. The word “maths” is UK English.

Thank you for clarifying me 🙂

Hi Liz, You talked about math’s teacher. If it would Science or English then also we will use ” ‘s “?

In British English we say “maths”, in US English it is “math”.

There’s this slight confusion I’ve got. There are some words which can be used with an S as well as a Z, for e.g Realized, Exercize. Which one is correct?

“z” is american spelling and “s” is British English spelling. Don’t mix them. Choose which spelling you will use and stick with it.

What is the difference between agree or disagree and to what extent do you agree or disagree types question?

https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-essay-instructions-agree-disagree-to-what-extent/

Hello… Take my cordial thanks Liz. I purchased your writing videos and I find it very useful. I’m looking for at least 6.5 band before I thought that it was too difficult to get 6.5 in writing segment but after watching these videos my confident level is increased. And your all tips and lessons are wonderful, to be honest. That is why, again thanks s lot 😘😘😊😊❤️❤️

Make sure you aim for accuracy in your writing – all errors reduce marks. Also spend time analysing the question, you must address all issues directly. Avoid using learned phrases – all sentences must be your own. So, you can learn vocab and linking words but not phrases. Good luck !! 🙂

The work that you do for us, learners of English from all over the world, cannot be valued. Thank you for putting your heart and soul in making us more literate in English! I wish you luck and success!

what is best way of writing process chart

See all my tips for writing task 1 on this page: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-writing-task-1-lessons-and-tips/

Hi Liz, I am so grateful to you that I can know everything about IELTS from your website. It is a very useful and perfect one for me.You are a great teacher.

Best Regards, Mai

I achieved 6.5 with the help of you because I watched your all video. It’s very beneficial thanku so much u are great teacher

Well done !

your lessons are amazing and very useful, thank you

Hello Liz , You are the great teacher in the world..I spentmy whole day on this site.there many things which help me in many situations..m so happy that I have great great teacher..May God bless youuu😊☺️..thnx a lot Liz

Thanks so much for telling me you find my site useful 🙂

My exam will be held on 13 october nd m weak in listening nd reading . pls mam u send me some listening Mp3 in my email

You can find online listening on this page: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-listening/

HI liz my name is nyom nyom i am from Indonesia could you help me how the way to improve my writing skill? please send in my email thanks before

See my advanced lessons if you need help with writing task 2: http://subscriptions.viddler.com/IELTSLizStore

Thanks to my best teacher!

hi i am going to appear for my ilets exam next week but i am not sure about my reading skills. can you give me some good tips to improve my skills in reading

https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-reading-tips-how-can-i-improve-my-score/

Dear Liza, Hello Liz, I am Totok Eko Suwito, I am an English teacher in Indonesia, I want to practice my listening especially because I ‘m going to have the IELTS test, if you don’t mind, Would you send me the script and audio MP3 of the listening above to my email. thank a lot your sincerely Totok Eko Suwito

https://ieltsliz.com/liz-notice-2015-2016/

Hello Liz, Please liz l wonder when I want to get 7 score I found different types of vocabulary for examle the 8or 9 band’s vocabulary in some video more different than band7??

There is no such thing as band 7 vocab and band 9 vocab. Your vocab score is not marked in that way. It is based on range, accuracy, collocations and also the number of errors – and spelling.

I am so weak in listening vocabulary. Give me some tips.

That is really superlative vocabulary and it can play an indispensable role in IELTS test. Thanks Liza and i would like to say one thing more, your expressions are really appreciated. All the best. Mazhar Ishfaq

Thanks Liz. I accidentally came upon your site and found my essay shared by someone on your blog. I liked your feedback. I have rewritten this essay for the next edition of my book – A Wealth of Academic IELTS Essays.

Great. Good to know my feedback is useful 🙂 Liz

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Wheelock Lecturer Works inside and outside System to Fight for Education Equality

70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, a new report shows school segregation is on the rise in Massachusetts. Alum Raul Fernandez is doing something about it.

As the chair of a committee that advises the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on matters of race and equity in public education, Raul Fernandez (COM’00, Wheelock’16) is practicing what he teaches.

70 years after Brown v. Board of Education , a new report shows school segregation is on the rise in Massachusetts. Alum Raul Fernandez is doing something about it.

Bu photography.

Racial segregation in America’s public schools feels like something that happened back then . Back then, Black children were segregated by race into unsafe school buildings—in poorly resourced classrooms with too few desks and secondhand textbooks—that were often inaccessible by public transportation. 

Following the US Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ruling racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, states and districts began the long and sometimes messy process of integrating schools. Seven decades after that consequential decision, segregated schools are a thing of the past, a societal sin rightfully put on the trash heap of history. Right?

Not so, says Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development lecturer Raul Fernandez, who researches school segregation and taught a new course on the subject this spring. Fernandez chairs a committee for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) that has been studying the issue in the Bay State. 

In a 45-page report published June 4, the committee, the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council (RIAC), mined publicly available data for evidence of racial segregation in Massachusetts public school districts. They found “persistent racial segregation” across the commonwealth resulting in “clear and heartbreaking differences between the educational outcomes of students in schools overwhelmingly populated by students of color compared with those overwhelmingly populated by white students,” says Fernandez (COM’00, Wheelock’16). 

Notably, the report found a chasm between the success of “intensely segregated white schools” and “intensely segregated non-white schools.” Under DESE’s assessment of educational outcomes, largely white schools had an average score of 66.32 percent student achievement, while largely non-white schools averaged 18.72 percent—a 48-point gap. Nationally, the share of public schools with student bodies that are more than 90 percent white has risen from around 7 percent in 1988 to nearly 20 percent in 2024 .

Racial imbalance manifests in two main ways, according to Fernandez. The first is when the majority of students in a school or district are of one race, which he says inherently deprives students of a diversity of experiences and viewpoints.

“Think about the US senator who went to all-white schools K–12 and likely a historically or predominantly white institution for college and is now tasked with writing and voting on laws that have implications for communities of color, of which that senator has little firsthand knowledge,” Fernandez says.

“The second is an even more pernicious form of racial imbalance or segregation, where the student outcomes correlate heavily with race and income,” he continues. “As our analysis of DESE data shows, this form of ‘double segregation’ correlates with large gaps in test scores, chronic absenteeism, graduation rates, college matriculation, and more.” 

Allowed to Grow and Thrive

Fernandez gained firsthand knowledge of our two-tiered system of education while growing up with his family in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City in the 1980s, nearly 30 years after Brown . When he was just four years old, a preschool teacher recommended him for a gifted and talented program in the city’s public schools. 

The importance of that moment, Fernandez says, cannot be overstated: “[The program] lifts me out of what would have been my neighborhood schools all the way through high school and puts me on a different track, in a different place, with exceptional teachers, well-resourced schools, access to any number of extracurriculars, and the kind of environment where the soil is fertile and well-watered, the sun is shining, and where kids are allowed to grow and thrive.”

Fernandez thrived in the gifted track, developing—at school and at home—a love for learning. The program was an advantage, a golden ticket of sorts, that allowed him to excel in one of the city’s prestigious high schools, the Bronx High School of Science, and eventually at Boston University as an undergraduate and graduate student. He’s both grateful for an opportunity that transformed his life and fully aware that he benefited from an education system that seems to randomly offer some students a chance for success, while leaving others behind. 

Case in point: When Fernandez attended the Bronx High School of Science, 9 out of 10 students earned a diploma. The high school where many of his neighborhood friends attended, Bronx’s Robert Louis Stevenson High School—which was closed in 2009 for poor performance—graduated just 3 in 10 students. He remembers wondering, years later, why he was picked for a superior education and his friends were not.

“Those are the kids I grew up with in my neighborhood,” Fernandez says. “I was very much like them in all other ways, except for the educational opportunities that were made available to me.”

A Two-Tiered System

In the Brown decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregating public schools based on race is unconstitutional, even if segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. In a separate ruling a year later, the high court ordered states to desegregate “with all deliberate speed,” but it did not spell out how to do so. The result was outright resistance in parts of the southern United States and poorly implemented desegregation efforts elsewhere. 

Notably, the Massachusetts legislature passed the Racial Imbalance Act in 1965, ordering the state’s public schools to desegregate. But it would take nearly two decades for the city of Boston to make noticeable progress in desegregating its schools—and not without a federal court order and a sloppily rolled-out plan that involved Black and white kids being bused to schools far from their homes. The program resulted in daily protests and violence. Meanwhile, white parents pulled their kids out of Boston schools en masse, nearly cutting in half student enrollment during the busing years.

Decades later, Fernandez, curious about the education journey of BU undergraduates, conducted an informal poll among members of a Latinx student group and found that all but a handful of the 50 or so participants had attended well-resourced, largely white high schools. Fernandez wanted to know why this was, so he embarked on a deep dive at Wheelock into the presence of racial imbalance and segregation in public schools today. He found that decades after Brown , many K–12 school districts remain racially segregated, with Black and brown students often concentrated in under-resourced and underperforming schools. Meanwhile, white students have, on average, the least access to racially diverse peers. 

In spring 2024, Fernandez parlayed his research into School Segregation (SEDAP 654), a Wheelock course that explores what he calls “one of the most intractable issues in education.” The course surveys the history and current state of school segregation, with case studies coming from Boston and New York City. “I got great feedback from the initial group and am excited to teach the course as part of the BPS Dr. Carol Johnson District Leadership Fellowship this fall, and again for BU students in spring 2025,” Fernandez says. “Creating this course is without question the thing I’m most proud of during my time on faculty at BU.”

Fernandez’s exploration of school segregation has led to a position advising state education leaders on matters of race and equity. Under Fernandez’s leadership, RIAC—which formed in response to desegregation efforts in the 1970s—focuses on curbing racial imbalance and segregation in schools. 

For their new report on school segregation, Fernandez says, the committee originally set out to capture statistical trends relating to the racial makeup of the state’s schools, but lacked time and support from DESE’s data team. Their reporting largely relied on existing datasets kept by DESE, but several outside reports helped them better understand racial segregation in Massachusetts. 

RIAC’s June report found that more than 225,000 Massachusetts students—90 percent of them Latino or Black—languish at substandard, segregated schools. Segregated non-white schools have higher levels of suspensions and chronic absenteeism, and lower graduation rates and test scores. 

Many of the committee’s recommended actions involve better oversight and compliance from DESE and its Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, which Fernandez says has allowed segregation to fester in Massachusetts schools for too long. Recommendations include DESE coming into compliance with existing laws around racial imbalance, working with the legislature to review and update outdated laws, and collecting more data on segregation and making it publicly accessible. RIAC also calls on the legislature to unlock “substantial funding” in the budget for integration efforts in Massachusetts schools. Other recommendations include requiring school districts to conduct racial imbalance analyses prior to closing, building, or relocating a school and allowing students attending racially imbalanced or isolated schools to transfer to another school in the district. 

Fernandez is hopeful that the report will ultimately lead to less segregated schools in Massachusetts. The path to those changes, however, could get bumpy, he says.

“This is the first report in a generation on school segregation in Massachusetts, and I think there’s going to be a lot of interest in it,” Fernandez says. “Frankly, based on the data that we’ve already seen, potentially lawsuits will come out of it. In New Jersey and Minnesota, there have been cases recently where the courts have found [these states and their districts allowing] unconstitutional segregation. I think that’s going to be some of the outcome of the work of RIAC, or the state will figure out how to intervene before this happens.”

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Steve Holt is a senior editor and writer responsible for print alumni magazines at the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, School of Theology, and the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. He came to BU in 2022 from Appalachian Mountain Club, where he was a senior editor at the nonprofit’s award-winning member magazine. For more than a decade before that, Steve built a prolific freelance journalism career, collecting bylines in numerous print and online publications, such as The Boston Globe , Boston magazine, Civil Eats , Business Insider , and Bloomberg CityLab . His Edible Boston story about sustainable hamburgers in Boston was selected for inclusion in the Best Food Writing 2011 anthology. Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a master’s in theology from Abilene Christian University. Profile

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China has become a scientific superpower

From plant biology to superconductor physics the country is at the cutting edge.

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I n the atrium of a research building at the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS ) in Beijing is a wall of patents. Around five metres wide and two storeys high, the wall displays 192 certificates, positioned in neat rows and tastefully lit from behind. At ground level, behind a velvet rope, an array of glass jars contain the innovations that the patents protect: seeds.

CAS —the world’s largest research organisation—and institutions around China produce a huge amount of research into the biology of food crops. In the past few years Chinese scientists have discovered a gene that, when removed, boosts the length and weight of wheat grains, another that improves the ability of crops like sorghum and millet to grow in salty soils and one that can increase the yield of maize by around 10%. In autumn last year, farmers in Guizhou completed the second harvest of genetically modified giant rice that was developed by scientists at CAS .

The Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) has made agricultural research—which it sees as key to ensuring the country’s food security —a priority for scientists. Over the past decade the quality and the quantity of crop research that China produces has grown immensely, and now the country is widely regarded as a leader in the field. According to an editor of a prestigious European plant-sciences journal, there are some months when half of the submissions can come from China.

A journey of a thousand miles

The rise of plant-science research is not unique in China. In 2019 The Economist surveyed the research landscape in the country and asked whether China could one day become a scientific superpower. Today, that question has been unequivocally answered: “yes”. Chinese scientists recently gained the edge in two closely watched measures of high-quality science, and the country’s growth in top-notch research shows no sign of slowing. The old science world order, dominated by America, Europe and Japan, is coming to an end.

One way to measure the quality of a country’s scientific research is to tally the number of high-impact papers produced each year—that is, publications that are cited most often by other scientists in their own, later work. In 2003 America produced 20 times more of these high-impact papers than China, according to data from Clarivate, a science analytics company (see chart 1). By 2013 America produced about four times the number of top papers and, in the most recent release of data, which examines papers from 2022, China had surpassed both America and the entire European Union ( EU ).

Metrics based on citations can be gamed, of course. Scientists can, and do, find ways to boost the number of times their paper is mentioned in other studies, and a recent working paper, by Qui Shumin, Claudia Steinwender and Pierre Azoulay, three economists, argues that Chinese researchers cite their compatriots far more than Western researchers do theirs. But China now leads the world on other benchmarks that are less prone to being gamed. It tops the Nature Index, created by the publisher of the same name, which counts the contributions to articles that appear in a set of prestigious journals. To be selected for publication, papers must be approved by a panel of peer reviewers who assess the study’s quality, novelty and potential for impact. When the index was first launched, in 2014, China came second, but its contribution to eligible papers was less than a third of America’s. By 2023 China had reached the top spot.

According to the Leiden Ranking of the volume of scientific research output, there are now six Chinese universities or institutions in the world top ten, and seven according to the Nature Index. They may not be household names in the West yet, but get used to hearing about Shanghai Jiao Tong, Zhejiang and Peking (Beida) Universities in the same breath as Cambridge, Harvard and ETH Zurich. “Tsinghua is now the number one science and technology university in the world,” says Simon Marginson, a professor of higher education at Oxford University. “That’s amazing. They’ve done that in a generation.”

Today China leads the world in the physical sciences, chemistry and Earth and environmental sciences, according to both the Nature Index and citation measures (see chart 2). But America and Europe still have substantial leads in both general biology and medical sciences. “Engineering is the ultimate Chinese discipline in the modern period,” says Professor Marginson, “I think that’s partly about military technology and partly because that’s what you need to develop a nation.”

Applied research is a Chinese strength. The country dominates publications on perovskite solar panels, for example, which offer the possibility of being far more efficient than conventional silicon cells at converting sunlight into electricity. Chinese chemists have developed a new way to extract hydrogen from seawater using a specialised membrane to separate out pure water, which can then be split by electrolysis. In May 2023 it was announced that the scientists, in collaboration with a state-owned Chinese energy company, had developed a pilot floating hydrogen farm off the country’s south-eastern coast.

China also now produces more patents than any other country, although many are for incremental tweaks to designs, as opposed to truly original inventions. New developments tend to spread and be adopted more slowly in China than in the West. But its strong industrial base, combined with cheap energy, means that it can quickly spin up large-scale production of physical innovations like materials. “That’s where China really has an advantage on Western countries,” says Jonathan Bean, CEO of Materials Nexus, a British firm that uses AI to discover new materials.

The country is also signalling its scientific prowess in more conspicuous ways. Earlier this month, China’s Chang’e-6 robotic spacecraft touched down in a gigantic crater on the far side of the Moon, scooped up some samples of rock, planted a Chinese flag and set off back towards Earth. If it successfully returns to Earth at the end of the month, it will be the first mission to bring back samples from this hard-to-reach side of the Moon.

First, sharpen your tools

The reshaping of Chinese science has been achieved by focusing on three areas: money, equipment and people. In real terms, China’s spending on research and development ( R & D ) has grown 16-fold since 2000. According to the most recent data from the OECD , from 2021, China still lagged behind America on overall R & D spending, dishing out $668bn, compared with $806bn for America at purchasing-power parity. But in terms of spending by universities and government institutions only, China has nudged ahead. In these places America still spends around 50% more on basic research, accounting for costs, but China is splashing the cash on applied research and experimental development (see chart 3).

Money is meticulously directed into strategic areas. In 2006 the CCP published its vision for how science should develop over the next 15 years. Blueprints for science have since been included in the CCP ’s five-year development plans. The current plan, published in 2021, aims to boost research in quantum technologies, AI , semiconductors, neuroscience, genetics and biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and exploration of “frontier areas” like deep space, deep oceans and Earth’s poles.

Creating world-class universities and government institutions has also been a part of China’s scientific development plan. Initiatives like “Project 211”, the “985 programme” and the “China Nine League” gave money to selected labs to develop their research capabilities. Universities paid staff bonuses—estimated at an average of $44,000 each, and up to a whopping $165,000—if they published in high-impact international journals.

Building the workforce has been a priority. Between 2000 and 2019, more than 6m Chinese students left the country to study abroad, according to China’s education ministry. In recent years they have flooded back, bringing their newly acquired skills and knowledge with them. Data from the OECD suggest that, since the late 2000s, more scientists have been returning to the country than leaving. China now employs more researchers than both America and the entire EU .

Many of China’s returning scientists, often referred to as “sea turtles” (a play on the Chinese homonym haigui , meaning “to return from abroad”) have been drawn home by incentives. One such programme launched in 2010, the “Youth Thousand Talents”, offered researchers under 40 one-off bonuses of up to 500,000 yuan (equivalent to roughly $150,000 at purchasing-power parity) and grants of up to 3m yuan to get labs up and running back home. And it worked. A study published in Science last year found that the scheme brought back high-calibre young researchers—they were, on average, in the most productive 15% of their peers (although the real superstar class tended to turn down offers). Within a few years, thanks to access to more resources and academic manpower, these returnees were lead scientists on 2.5 times more papers than equivalent researchers who had remained in America.

As well as pull, there has been a degree of push. Chinese scientists working abroad have been subject to increased suspicion in recent years. In 2018 America launched the China Initiative, a largely unsuccessful attempt to root out Chinese spies from industry and academia. There have also been reports of students being deported because of their association with China’s “military-civilian fusion strategy”. A recent survey of current and former Chinese students studying in America found that the share who had experienced racial abuse or discrimination was rising.

The availability of scientists in China means that, for example in quantum computing, some of the country’s academic labs are more like commercial labs in the West, in terms of scale. “They have research teams of 20, 30, even 40 people working on the same experiments, and they make really good progress,” says Christian Andersen, a quantum researcher at Delft University. In 2023 researchers working in China broke the record for the number of quantum bits, or qubits, entangled inside a quantum computer.

China has also splurged on scientific kit. In 2019, when The Economist last surveyed the state of the country’s scientific research, it already had an enviable inventory of flashy hardware including supercomputers, the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope and an underground dark-matter detector. The list has only grown since then. The country is now home to the world’s most sensitive ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray detector (which has recently been used to test aspects of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity), the world’s strongest steady-state magnetic field (which can probe the properties of materials) and soon will have one of the world’s most sensitive neutrino detectors (which will be used to work out which type of these fundamental subatomic particles has the highest mass). Europe and America have plenty of cool kit of their own, but China is rapidly adding hardware.

Individual labs in China’s top institutions are also well equipped. Niko McCarty, a journalist and former researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was recently given a tour of synthetic biology labs in China, was struck by how, in academic institutions, “the machines are just more impressive and more expansive” than in America. At the Advanced Biofoundry at the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, which the country hopes will be the centre of China’s answer to Silicon Valley, Mr McCarty described an “amazing building with four floors of robots”. As Chinese universities fill with state-of-the-art equipment and elite researchers, and salaries become increasingly competitive, Western institutions look less appealing to young and ambitious Chinese scientists. “Students in China don’t think about America as some “scientific Mecca” in the same way their advisers might have done,” said Mr McCarty.

Take AI , for example. In 2019 just 34% of Chinese students working in the field stayed in the country for graduate school or work. By 2022 that number was 58%, according to data from the AI talent tracker by MacroPolo, an American think-tank (in America the figure for 2022 was around 98%). China now contributes to around 40% of the world’s research papers on AI , compared with around 10% for America and 15% for the EU and Britain combined. One of the most highly cited research papers of all time, demonstrating how deep neural networks could be trained on image recognition, was written by AI researchers working in China, albeit for Microsoft, an American company. “China’s AI research is world-class,” said Zachary Arnold, an AI analyst at the Georgetown Centre for Emerging Security and Technology. “In areas like computer vision and robotics, they have a significant lead in research publications.”

Growth in the quality and quantity of Chinese science looks unlikely to stop anytime soon. Spending on science and technology research is still increasing—the government has announced a 10% increase in funding in 2024. And the country is training an enormous number of young scientists. In 2020 Chinese universities awarded 1.4m engineering degrees, seven times more than America did. China has now educated, at undergraduate level, 2.5 times more of the top-tier AI researchers than America has. And by 2025, Chinese universities are expected to produce nearly twice as many P h D graduates in science and technology as America.

To see further, ascend another floor

Although China is producing more top-tier work, it still produces a vast amount of lower-quality science too. On average, papers from China tend to have lower impact, as measured by citations, than those from America, Britain or the EU . And while the chosen few universities have advanced, mid-level universities have been left behind. China’s second-tier institutions still produce work that is of relatively poor quality compared with their equivalents in Europe or America. “While China has fantastic quality at the top level, it’s on a weak base,” explains Caroline Wagner, professor of science policy at Ohio State University.

When it comes to basic, curiosity-driven research (rather than applied) China is still playing catch-up—the country publishes far fewer papers than America in the two most prestigious science journals, Nature and Science . This may partly explain why China seems to punch below its weight in the discovery of completely new technologies. Basic research is particularly scant within Chinese companies, creating a gap between the scientists making discoveries and the industries that could end up using them. “For more original innovation, that might be a minus,” says Xu Xixiang, chief scientist at LONG i Green Energy Technology, a Chinese solar company.

Incentives to publish papers have created a market for fake scientific publications. A study published earlier this year in the journal Research Ethics , featured anonymous interviews from Chinese academics, one of whom said he had “no choice but to commit [research] misconduct”, to keep up with pressures to publish and retain his job. “Citation cartels” have emerged, where groups of researchers band together to write low-quality papers that cite each other’s work in an effort to drive up their metrics. In 2020 China’s science agencies announced that such cash-for-publication schemes should end and, in 2021, the country announced a nationwide review of research misconduct. That has led to improvements—the rate at which Chinese researchers cite themselves, for example, is falling, according to research published in 2023. And China’s middle-ranking universities are slowly catching up with their Western equivalents, too.

The areas where America and Europe still hold the lead are, therefore, unlikely to be safe for long. Biological and health sciences rely more heavily on deep subject-specific knowledge and have historically been harder for China to “bring back and accelerate”, says Tim Dafforn, a professor of biotechnology at University of Birmingham and former adviser to Britain’s department for business. But China’s profile is growing in these fields. Although America currently produces roughly four times more highly influential papers in clinical medicine, in many areas China is producing the most papers that cite this core research, a sign of developing interest that presages future expansion. “On the biology side, China is growing remarkably quickly,” says Jonathan Adams, chief scientist at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. “Its ability to switch focus into a new area is quite remarkable.”

The rise of Chinese science is a double-edged sword for Western governments. China’s science system is inextricably linked with its state and armed forces—many Chinese universities have labs explicitly working on defence and several have been accused of engaging in espionage or cyber-attacks. China has also been accused of intellectual-property theft and increasingly stringent regulations have made it more difficult for international collaborators to take data out of the country; notoriously, in 2019, the country cut off access to American-funded work on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There are also cases of Chinese researchers failing to adhere to the ethical standards expected by Western scientists.

Despite the concerns, Chinese collaborations are common for Western researchers. Roughly a third of papers on telecommunications by American authors involve Chinese collaborators. In imaging science, remote sensing, applied chemistry and geological engineering, the figures are between 25% and 30%. In Europe the numbers are lower, around 10%, but still significant. These partnerships are beneficial for both countries. China tends to collaborate more in areas where it is already strong like materials and physics. A preprint study, released last year, found that for AI research, having a co-author from America or China was equally beneficial to authors from the other country, conferring on average 75% more citations.

Several notable successes have come from working together, too. During the covid-19 pandemic a joint venture between Oxford University’s Engineering Department and the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research developed a rapid covid test that was used across British airports. In 2015 researchers at University of Cardiff and South China Agricultural University identified a gene that made bacteria resistant to the antibiotic colistin. Following this, China, the biggest consumer of the drug, banned its use in animal feed, and levels of colistin resistance in both animals and humans declined.

In America and Europe, political pressure is limiting collaborations with China. In March, America’s Science and Technology Agreement with China, which states that scientists from both countries can collaborate on topics of mutual benefit, was quietly renewed for a further six months. Although Beijing appears keen to renew the 45-year-old agreement, many Republicans fear that collaboration with China is helping the country achieve its national-security goals. In Europe, with the exception of environmental and climate projects, Chinese universities have been effectively barred from accessing funding through the Horizon programme, a huge European research initiative.

There are also concerns among scientists that China is turning inwards. The country has explicit aims to become self-reliant in many areas of science and technology and also shift away from international publications as a way of measuring research output. Many researchers cannot talk to the press—finding sources in China for this story was challenging. One Chinese plant scientist, who asked to remain anonymous, said that she had to seek permission a year in advance to attend overseas conferences. “It’s contradictory—on the one hand, they set restrictions so that scientists don’t have freedoms like being able to go abroad to communicate with their colleagues. But on the other hand, they don’t want China to fall behind.”

Live until old, learn until old

The overwhelming opinion of scientists in China and the West is that collaboration must continue or, better, increase. And there is room to do more. Though China’s science output has grown dramatically, the share that is conducted with international collaborators has remained stable at around 20%—Western scientists tend to have far more international collaborations. Western researchers could pay more attention to the newest science from China, too. Data from a study published last year in Nature Human Behaviour showed that, for work of equivalent quality, Chinese scientists cite Western papers far more than vice versa. Western scientists rarely visit, work or study in China, depriving them of opportunities to learn from Chinese colleagues in the way Chinese scientists have done so well in the West.

Closing the door to Chinese students and researchers wishing to come to Western labs would also be disastrous for Western science. Chinese researchers form the backbone of many departments in top American and European universities. In 2022 more of the top-tier AI researchers working in America hailed from China than from America. The West’s model of science currently depends on a huge number of students, often from overseas, to carry out most day-to-day research.

There is little to suggest that the Chinese scientific behemoth will not continue growing stronger. China’s ailing economy may eventually force the CCP to slow spending on research, and if the country were to become completely cut off from the Western science community its research would suffer. But neither of these looks imminent. In 2019 we also asked if research could flourish in an authoritarian system. Perhaps over time its limits will become clear. But for now, and at least for the hard sciences, the answer is that it can thrive. “I think it’d be very unwise to call limits on the Chinese miracle,” says Prof Marginson. “Because it has had no limits up until now.” ■

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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Soaring dragons”

From the June 15th 2024 edition

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