Academic qualification ensures success in life?

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Academic qualification ensures success in

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Summary: Academic qualifications are commonly felt to give a person the
best chance of success in life. How far is this true?
Introduction
Author:Nisaar Nadiadwala ( India ) I am a trainer in panel discussions, debates and public speeches
for the past 8 years in Mumbai, India

Created: Thursday, May 21, 2009

Last Modified: Thursday, January 14, 2010

Context
The definition of success differs from person to person and field to field. One could take economic
success as a touchstone to label a person successful in life, ignoring his of her other failures, like
divorce, health, inefficiency, etc. Others may look at a capacity for overcoming challenges, irrespective
of what someone earns and the nature of their private life. So who is a successful person and who is a
failure? Do school and college grades and examination results provide a way of predicting or ensuring
future success? If that is true, then we should encourage as many young people as possible to go to
university and work hard to gain formal qualifications. But is it true? Aren’t some college drop-outs like
Bill Gates and Richard Branson hugely successful icons of success? And should we automatically
consider the millions of young people who have not had the opportunity to gain academic certificates to
be failures in life?

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Arguments
Pros
Whether one is proposing marriage, applying for a job
or looking for a new business partner, the first thing
people ask is, "what do you do?" In other words they
judge you by your academic qualifications. No bio-
data résumé or curriculum vitae is acceptable without
the inclusion of education qualifications. Therefore it is
an unannounced rule of both the corporate world and
the social world that a man's acquisition of academic
qualifications is a giant leap towards opportunities in
every walk of life.
Cons
Success never depends upon grades. If success and
opportunities were measured by grades then the
corporate world and potential marriage partners would
not ask for biodata in résumés, where other
qualifications are also mentioned. Nor would they
interview the prospects in order to find out what they
are like as people, rather they would give a blind
appointment to the people with the best paper
qualifications. So qualifications alone are never
enough, success depends upon physical
characteristics, personality, and a willingness to work
hard.

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Academic qualifications ensure you have the basics in
learning. If your basic grounding in Maths, Science
and Languages is strong, you can get success in life
because mastering these subjects allows you to
calculate, to innovate and to communicate. These
essentials for success cannot be learned without
professional help – in schools and colleges. And in
order to prove that someone has acquired this
knowledge, they are tested. If their learning is
satisfactory, then they are given a certificate to
indicate their competence – an academic qualification.
There may be a few people like Bill Gates and others
who have made it, in spite of their drop-out
background and lack of academic qualifications, but
can this be generalized? Should I tell my child to leave
schooling because if Bill Gates can do it they can also
do it? A few exceptions cannot be taken as a general
rule.
And even for those few high-profile people who have
made it without academic qualifications, let’s ask a
simple question - if you look at a global directory of
successful people you might find a few hundred like
Bill Gates, but what about those millions of doctors,
Success is not getting a grade or a degree, if that was
it then why aren't all the graduates from Harvard,
Oxford or Cambridge uniformly successful? The rule
of success is hard work and destiny of course. If a
student of engineering gets good grades but he is not
practically effective in relationship-buildings and
solving crises or proper planning, even though he may
be successful in getting a job but it will not lead him
far. On the way he is sure to fade out.
If you look into a directory of successful people who
are doctors, engineers and IT professionals, then you
will notice that many of them dream to be employed
by people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson, who are
prosperous despite not having college degrees. In
other words, prosperity does not depend upon
academic qualifications but upon opportunities
provided by entrepreneurs who may not be
necessarily be highly educated. Successful
entrepreneurs even benefit from not having academic
qualifications, because going to college and taking
examinations forces people to learn and think like

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Academic qualification ensures success in life?: Debatabase - Debate Topics and Debate Motions
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engineers, IT professionals, lawyers, and advocates
who rely upon their formal education? Can you run a
country without them? And could even Bill Gates have
prospered without the skills of these IT professionals
and engineers?
We spend ten years of schooling and several more
years of our precious life in college, and then one fine
morning someone comes and says that this is not
required for success. When asked for proof, they say
"look at Bill Gates!" But success isn’t a just matter of
building a huge firm from scratch and making billions
of dollars – by that definition, only a tiny number of
people in the world could be considered successful.
No, success is about making the most of your talents
and abilities, and that requires dedication and study in
academic institutions that will stretch you intellectually.
An academic education gives people a rounded
experience of life, with opportunities to meet people
from a wide range of backgrounds and to consider the
importance in life of values and culture. These are
necessary things required to label a person successful
in all aspects of life. More broadly, widespread further
education makes us a civilized nation. It uplifts our
morals and ethics by exposing us to the great thinkers
of the past. It makes us aware of our rights and
liberties, and helps entrench a liberal democracy with
active citizens and a lively media.
Academic qualifications may not be enough on their
own to ensure success, but they indicate that their
possessor has got what it takes. Imagine a new world
order in education, where people don't study but join
their business or look for jobs straight from school,
with no qualifications to prove their worth. How would
employers choose between them? Academic grades
are important, because in order to gain good exam
grades or a degree, students have to work hard,
master demanding skills and learn a great deal of
specialist knowledge. These are valuable attributes for
success in any field of endeavour, which is why
employers value academic qualifications. Simply
getting into a good college indicates to a future
employer that the student is out of the ordinary.
Motions
This House believes that academic qualifications ensure success in life
This House believes that educational qualifications make our society worth living in
That we should value academic qualifications
This House believes grades maketh man
Useful Sites
A good article on failed education
Higher Education, or Hire Education?: Questioning the Purpose and Value of College for All Students By
Anthony Cody
Schools Don’t Prepare Young People for Life in the Real World
Article: Thousands of teenagers drop out of university after being pushed onto 'pointless' courses
Article: Useless? To a degree
millions of other graduates. This actually makes it less
likely that they will come up with the truly mould-
breaking insights and “disruptive” ideas on which
successful innovations and new business models are
built.
Unfortunately the materialistic world has changed the
concept of success. It has become a rat-race where
every student chases grades and therefore the entire
perception of success and prosperity has changed.
Rather than studying to reach our full potential, we do
it because we think it is necessary for a successful
career. So we spend ten years in school and a few
more years of our precious life in college to get
educated, then more time is passed in hunting for
jobs. Even after that we may find ourselves in the
wrong profession and lacking job satisfaction. And
then recession comes along, when we are told that
our wealth has been blown away by the foolishness of
expensive fat-salaried CEOs. Now comes a time when
we go to work with a constant fear of losing the job we
don’t enjoy. Is this the correct understanding of
prosperity? So now the definition of success is
changed. If you are able to save your job then you are
successful!
Can academic qualification stop us from becoming a
civilization of drunkards, rapists and war-mongers,
marked by broken families, domestic violence and
crime? If you look at countries where the largest
number of people have higher academic qualifications,
they are the ones most affected by social breakdown.
And would you call the conduct of the US wars on Iraq
and Afghanistan a successful example of the
superiority of the US economy and society? In fact
true success is shown in having the moral courage to
speak out against atrocities and injustice, showing
generosity towards the poor, and respecting our
parents. These are characteristics which are found in
people from all social and educational backgrounds,
but often absent in many educated Americans and
Europeans, in spite of the universities they have been
to and the grades they have achieved.
Often academic qualifications have no real relevance
to the jobs graduates are employed to do. A few
decades ago employers in areas such as banking,
engineering, management and government service
recruited people straight from school at the age of 15
or 16, training them on the job and promoting them to
higher levels of responsibility according to their ability.
Today none of these jobs has changed very much, but
all now require applicants have a university degree.
Why has this changed? One reason is that the upper
and middle classes are trying to protect their own jobs
– demanding new recruits have expensive academic
qualifications excludes many talented young people
from poorer backgrounds.
Academic qualification ensures success in life?: Debatabase - Debate Topics and Debate Motions

Report from Management Issues.com

Useful Books
Rich Dad Poor Dad
By: Robert Kiyosaki , Sharon L. Lechter
University of Life
By: Nani Aki Linder
Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach
By: Nel Noddings
300 Best Jobs Without a Four-Year Degree
By: Michael Farr, Laurence Shatkin
But What If I Don't Want to Go to College?: A Guide to Success Through Alternative Education
By: Harlow G. Unger

Themes
Education

Discuss
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Author Post

odil Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2011 11:40 pm

Member
if we think of this topic from the philosophic perspective it is true that we do our
success ourselves without any qualifications the only thing you have to contribute is
your efforts and commitment. But today when everything relies on money and papers
it is true that you need some "qualifications".:D

jeffing Posted: Thu Mar 3, 2011 09:54 am

Member

gawhar Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:54 pm

Member
in my openion success in life depends on learning from experience of others plus
creativity

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