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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Canchungo, Guinea Bissau
01 April 2008
The West African nation of Guinea-Bissau has one of the worst school systems in the world, according to the United Nations. Teachers go for months without getting paid, and often go on strike. Phuong Tran reports for VOA from the town of Canchungo, where students are urging the government to keep teachers in the classroom, while teachers complain their demands are ignored.
Ho Chi Minh High School is 70 kilometers outside of the country's capital, Bissau. When mango and cashew season starts in June, most students work in the fields. Student Norberto Paulo Mendes splits1 his time between selling his family's harvest and school.
"My father and my mother are very poor, so I do not have money to pay the school. So I have to go find job to find the money to pay the school," said Mendes. "I want you to help me because I am very tired. I am very tired."
The school year is often unpredictable.
Teachers frequently go on weeks-long strikes to demand salaries the government could not afford to pay. Five years ago, the education minister declared a school year invalid2 because teachers had only taught about 10 percent of the required time.
Despite going on strike last year to demand pay owed to him, teacher Marciano Alfredo Cumba says the government still owes him one year of salary. He says he needs to go to the capital for medical treatment, but cannot afford to make the trip.
Student Jean Batista Mendes says it is time teachers get what is owed to them. "If the government does not pay, schools cannot work," he said. "We cannot learn through all the strikes that interrupt our classes. It is hard to be young here. It is complicated to study. I would like to ask the president to pay not only teachers, but all state employees."
Some development analysts3 say Guinea-Bissau's government budget is misguided, and that more should be spent on education and less on the military.
Officials say periodic4 military takeovers and coup5 attempts, a rebellion6 to the south in the Senegalese Casamance region, and pensions for the large number of combatants who fought for independence from Portugal have swelled7 this small country's military budget.
But in the 2008 budget, there have been efforts to increase education spending.
Canchungo student Norberto Paulo Mendes says he thinks things will be better. He is willing to risk a career on this hope.
"I would like to be a teacher. I think they will pay the teachers very well. I know. I think," he said.
But one of his school's administrators8, 30-year-old Carlito Mendes, says the government also needs to take care of unfinished business.
He says he needs his salary owed from 2007. He has not been paid since last October.
1 splits | |
劈叉; 划分( split的名词复数 ); 分歧; 裂缝; 劈叉 | |
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2 invalid | |
n.病人,伤残人;adj.有病的,伤残的;无效的 | |
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3 analysts | |
分析家,化验员( analyst的名词复数 ) | |
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4 periodic | |
adj.周期的,定期的,时而发生的 | |
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5 coup | |
n.政变;突然而成功的行动 | |
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6 rebellion | |
n.造反,叛乱,反抗 | |
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7 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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8 administrators | |
n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 );有管理(或行政)才能的人;(由遗嘱检验法庭指定的)遗产管理人;奉派暂管主教教区的牧师 | |
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