A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.

Education system is divided into roughly three systems with slight variations across states and nations;
1) Primary education
2) High school
3) Graduate and Post graduate education

Few nations allow students to choose their subjects or electives during the later stages of highschool. While few others totally lack in providing this flexibility, and have a common curriculum until a student enters college.

The issue being discussed becomes of primary importance, since it has been established as a well known fact that one of the most significant resource a country can possess and nurture is the intellectual capital. Only by shaping the young minds of the nation in the right direction at the right time can the true efficacy of education be recieved.

Before we see the merits of both systems, an interesting point to be noted is that behavior of students across various culture and also within a culture is not the same. In some economies such as China and India, it becomes implicit that a child must choose from limited options that make job oppurtunties plausible. While in more developed economies, this concern is absent. To enforce a common education until college for the developing economies might be necessary, since giving options to students will largely polarize education, and fields of literature and arts might not have any torchbearers.

The fact that seemingly disconnected subjects might also converge at some point of higher education must be taken into account. For example, a biology student might want to ignore Mathematics, however, the understanding of various biological systems and processes necessitate the understanding of differential calculus. Similarly, a scientists command over written and spoken literature allows him to articulate abstract thoughts in patterns that make complex thought process plausible. Einstein was a wonderful viloinist and often solved the most intricate problems in his min while playing music. It is also a well known fact that Leonardo da Vinci was much more than artist; he was a scientist and inventor and an anatomist.

It might be argued, that students lacking absolute interest in, say pure sciences might not show adequate interest in studying them, and therefore might lose interest in education atall. But if proded correctly and through carefully planned curriculum, most students can be provided the basic essential education on all subjects, and not just a few.

In conclusion, it is a difficult problem to solve for all cases in general. Only by keeping in mind the cultural and social behavior of a particular nation, could a correct conclusion be taken.