by Elena Yampolsky

Created on: November 13, 2008   Last Updated: December 22, 2008

I was raised up in the education system where all courses in school were mandatory. Moreover, after the students in college or university choose their majors, all university and college courses until the last year were mandatory as well. Don't look at the map, this system and this country do not exist anymore; this is the way education was structured in Soviet Union.

Do I think it is a perfect system? No. However, the "full mandatory" education system gives better results than the system where only arithmetic, reading and writing are considered a necessary requirement, and the rest of subjects are on "nice to know" basis.

There are two major reasons for this:

The person who has received "well-rounded" education is exposed to the different ways of looking at the information, and various methods of analysis. This enables more integrative approach to the future problem solving, ability to make connections, find missing links and see the big picture. These skills are useful in any profession, and on any level. Even the person who is working in manual trade would benefit if they can read the morning paper und better understand the differences between political candidates, or see the truth masked behind the curtain of political (or economical) lies. Despite the fact that our world is "global, flat and crowded", most people still get the information about the world outside North America only from the media, which is biased, by definition. It is straightforward to condemn outsourcing to India or China if you only look at the jobs lost in your own town. To the same extent, it is very easy to lobby in favor of sending the jobs away, if the company outsourcing these jobs provides better (or at least cheaper) products and services in a home state. Unless people know what is actually happening in the rest of the world, they are not able to predict their own future, and to understand their present.

There are some courses that without the doubt have to be taught as mandatory, such as basic computer classes, basic finance education, and sex education. These subjects, relatively new in the curriculum, all relate to the basic life skills to the same extent as arithmetic or reading skills. The world around us became more complicated than it is used to be even one generation ago, so the grown-up person should know how to use the computer, how to manage their money, and how to build their relationships - at least, in theory.

Mandatory Physical education is a matter for a separate article,

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