Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for a charity, improving the neighbourhood or teaching sports to younger children).To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Free service for community tends to be an increasingly important part of citizen’s daily life, while whether it should be a compulsory one for high school students remains controversial. Many people may agree to the view that this kind of activities help teenagers to build up their sense of belonging to a certain zone, however, making it a compulsory part of their lives is still an issue that yet to be discussed.

Providing unpaid service for one’s community is beneficial to both the society and the particular person who spare his or her effort to do it, because it not only makes a certain area a better place to live in, but also encourage a sense of fulfilment and belonging to that person. As for high school students, who are going through a period during which they learn about how to be a responsible member to the society, there can be no better time for them to take part in such programmes in their respect.

However, there might be some drawback to make it an out of duty arrangement for the students. When it comes to community service, it is always defined as a volunteer work opened to all citizens, which means that people are expected to give such services willingly, instead of being forced to do so. Another thing that should be mentioned is that high school students have their rights to manage their time, and that makes them free to decide to exact proportion they spent doing unpaid community service in their schooling life. Therefore, if free community service is a forced duty to students it may destroy the true meaning of this service as well as the students’s enthusiasm.

Moreover, not all community service should be free and different kinds of programmes should be carefully classified and well developed. For example, profit programmes might arouse students’ ability for creation, and non-profit ones like working for a NGO should really give students the opportunities to help people in need.

To sum up, unpaid community service should be encouraged to be part of high school programmes rather than being a compulsory task, so that it can better contribute to the all-round development to students.