Sample IELTS Task 2 essay: parents vs school teaching good citizenship

There is a debate about who should teach children to become good members of society. Some people think this is the job of parents, while other people believe that school is the right place for this. In this essay I will discuss both views and give my own opinion.

On the one hand, many people think that parents are responsible for teaching good behaviour. This is because children spend a lot of time at home, especially when they are very young. Parents can teach things like being polite, being honest and respecting other people. For example, if a child sees his parents helping their neighbours, the child will also learn to help others. So the family is a very important influence.

On the other hand, some people argue that school is the best place to learn these things. At school, children meet many different people and they must learn to share and work in a team. Teachers can also teach about rules and laws, and they can explain why we should follow them. Therefore school also plays a big role in making children good citizens.

In my opinion, both parents and school are important and we should not choose only one. Parents give the first lessons about right and wrong, but school continues this teaching and adds new experiences. When the home and the school work together, children will grow up to be responsible and good members of society. For these reasons, I believe the responsibility should be shared between the family and the school, and neither side should depend completely on the other.

Few would dispute that raising socially responsible citizens is one of society's central tasks, yet there is considerable disagreement over whether this duty falls primarily to parents or to schools. This essay will examine both positions before arguing that the two institutions play complementary, rather than competing, roles.

Those who favour the family point to its unrivalled emotional influence. Long before a child encounters a classroom, parents model the everyday values that underpin good citizenship—honesty, empathy and respect for others. Because these lessons are absorbed through daily routine and imitation rather than formal instruction, they tend to be deeply internalised. A child who repeatedly observes parents caring for elderly relatives, for instance, is likely to regard such consideration as natural and obligatory throughout adulthood.

Advocates of schooling, however, stress its unique social context. A classroom brings together children from diverse backgrounds, forcing them to negotiate, cooperate and resolve conflicts with peers who are not family. Teachers can also articulate abstract civic principles—the rule of law, tolerance and collective responsibility—more systematically than most parents could, and they can correct prejudices that might otherwise go unchallenged at home.

In my view, framing this as an either-or choice is misguided. Parents establish the moral foundation, but schools broaden and test it in a wider community, exposing children to perspectives they would never meet within the family alone. The most well-rounded adults invariably emerge where these influences reinforce one another. Consequently, I believe responsibility for shaping good citizens should be shared, with home and school treated as partners in a single, continuous process of social education.