VOA慢速英语2010年-Education Report - Greater Efforts Are

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

An international conference took place this week in Dakar, Senegal, to find new ways to get and keep girls in school.

The United Nations Children's Fund says nearly seventy-two million children were not in school in two thousand seven. More than half are girls, and more than two-thirds are in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and West Asia.

School attendance has improved in many areas. But the head of UNICEF, Anthony Lake, says:

ANTHONY LAKE: "Unless we all work harder, there may still be fifty-six million children out of school in two thousand fifteen."

He says progress and economic development depend on educating girls as well as boys. Educated girls are also at lower risk of violence, abuse and diseases like H.I.V./AIDS.

Pakistani girls in Peshawar last year. Their classes were held privately¹ after Islamic militants² reportedly blew up their school in an effort to prevent girls from getting an education.

The U.N. Girls' Education Initiative organized the meeting of two hundred scholars, aid workers and government officials from twenty-two countries. The initiative was launched in Dakar ten years ago. The aim is to bring primary school education to all girls and boys worldwide by two thousand fifteen.

In Senegal, the number of public schools has doubled in the last ten years. But UNICEF's Anthony Lake said schools still lack gender³ equality. He said girls in one Dakar school told him about a lack of bathrooms and textbooks for them, and bullying⁴ from boys.

The conference centered on three main problems to getting and keeping girls in school: violence, poverty and poor quality education.

Ann-Therese Ndong-Jatta is education director for UNESCO in Africa. She says donors⁵ are pumping in a lot of resources and civil society groups are working on access to education.

ANN-THERESE NDONG-JATTA: "But the truth is, seventy-five percent of the children fail."

The UNESCO official says schools need to modernize⁶ and improve what they teach and how they teach it. For example, she says schools should teach African children in their native languages, not simply in English or French.

To stay in school, experts say children must consider their education useful -- and so must their parents. May Rihani from the Global Advisory⁷ Committee of the U.N. girls' initiative gave an example from a "life skills" program in Mali.

One lesson is about diarrhea. The idea is for children to go tell their mother what they learned. May Rihani says: "The mother would recognize that this education is important to her and to her family and would want the child to continue to go to school."

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, with reporting by Anne Look in Dakar. I'm Steve Ember.

 

1 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

2 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

3 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

4 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 modernize   

vt.使现代化，使适应现代的需要

参考例句：

• It was their manifest failure to modernize the country's industries.他们使国家进行工业现代化，明显失败了。
• There is a pressing need to modernise our electoral system.我们的选举制度迫切需要现代化。

7 advisory   

adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询

参考例句：

• I have worked in an advisory capacity with many hospitals.我曾在多家医院做过顾问工作。
• He was appointed to the advisory committee last month.他上个月获任命为顾问委员会委员。