Further Education: Technical upgrade 继续教育：技术升级

　　The government turns its attention to the dire state of vocational training. 英国政府开始关注职业教育行业的糟糕现状投入更多金钱。

　　Budget cuts are never pleasant. 削减预算从来都不使人满意。

　　Yet the past few years have been particularly hard, says Gerry McDonald, the chief executive of New City College in east London. 东伦敦的新城市大学总裁Gerry McDonald称过去的几年非常难熬。

　　His institution is the result of a merger of three local colleges that have pooled resources in the past year partly to cut costs. 他的教育机构来自于三家当地大学的合并，一部分是为了削减成本而集中资源。

　　From April, it will serve around 4,000 16- to 18-year-olds (mainly studying full-time) and 15,000 adults (mainly part-time) . 自四月份起，在该学校接受教育的大概有四千名十六至十八岁的学生(主要为全日制)与一万五千名成人学生(主要为半日制)。

　　Annual rounds of redundancies have “become a way of life”, Mr McDonald sighs. McDonald 叹气道，每年一次的裁员 “已经成为一种生活方式了”。

　　Since 1990, funding for primary and secondary schools has soared. 从1990年开始，对中小学的资金支持飞涨。

　　Universities have been given the right to raise their incomes by levying tuition fees on students. 大学也已可以向学生收取学费以增加收入。

　　But there has been no such increase in cash for further education, the mostly vocational courses for over-16s. 但是对于继续教育机构来说，并没有类似的收入增长，其中大多数为十六岁以上人群提供职业课程培训。

　　On March 8th Philip Hammond, the chancellor, turned his attention to the sector. 3月8日，总理Philip Hammond 把他的注意力放在了这个行业。

　　After announcing funding to pave the way for new selective grammar schools, a controversial objective of the prime minister,  他宣布逐步推进支持步伐，一位备受争议的首相，在宣布为促进新的选择性文法类学校的发展提供资金支持后，

　　he promised a big injection of cash for further education and confirmed a shake-up of the chaotic way in which it is organised. 他承诺将继续为教育投入大笔资金并坚称会平息组织中存在的混乱现象。

　　By 2022 colleges will get an additional ￡500m ($600m) a year, a 19% increase in the 16- to 19-year-old vocational-education budget. 在2022年之前，大学机构每年将额外获得五亿英镑(约六亿美元)，给16至19岁群体职业培训课程的预算增加了19%。

　　Britain has historically put little emphasis on further education. 英国人有不重视继续教育的历史传统。

　　In 2012 it placed 16th out of 20 member countries of the OECD in a ranking of the proportion of 20- to 45-year-olds who finished education with a vocational qualification. 在2012年经合组织20个会员国的20至45岁人群完成职业资质认证比例排名里，英国位列十六。

　　That may help explain why productivity growth has stalled, and why British youngsters are less literate and numerate than their peers in other rich countries. 这或许有助于解释为何英国生产率增长停滞，为何英国年轻人相对于其他富裕国家的同龄人而言文化与数学素养更低。