VOA慢速英语2012 Education Report - Conflicts Keep Millions of Children Out of School

 

Education Report - Conflicts Keep Millions of Children Out of School

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Conflicts around the world are keeping tens of millions of young people from going to school. Many have physical or emotional injuries that make it hard or even impossible for them to learn.

Later this year UNESCO will release its twenty-twelve "Education for All Global Monitoring Report." UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The yearly publication is part of a global campaign to provide primary education to all children within the next three years.

The report documents the situation in countries that have made the least progress toward the Millennium¹ Development Goals. These goals require universal primary education and equality for boys and girls in schooling² by twenty-fifteen.

Pauline Rose is the director of the report.

PAULINE ROSE: "In those thirty-five conflict-affected countries, we find twenty-eight million children out of school. In some countries, it's just that schools are not even accessible in conflict zones. The teachers aren't there. The schools are sometimes even attacked."

The Geneva Conventions bar the targeting of public places like schools and hospitals. In some cases, schools are targeted because they represent the government. Pauline Rose says in other cases, schools are targeted for religious or political reasons.

PAULINE ROSE: "So in Afghanistan, given that the idea of girls going to school has been part of the concern of some militant³ groups, that has been a cause for their direct attack on girls schools. In other parts of the world, it might be more that schools are caught in the crossfire⁴."

Conflicts also put girls and boys at risk of sexual violence. Schoolchildren are also at risk of being forced to become soldiers.

Under international law, refugees are the only displaced people with a guaranteed right to education. But that guarantee often means little. Schools in refugee camps often have limited money for teachers or supplies.

Last year, Pauline Rose visited the Dadaab camps in northern Kenya. Those camps shelter more than two hundred fifty thousand refugees from Somalia.

PAULINE ROSE: "So you have half of children without any access to school. You have sort of classes of over three hundred children, and I mean just the conditions getting worse and worse."

What if conflict states in sub-Saharan Africa moved just ten percent of their military spending to education? UNESCO says they could educate more than one-fourth of their out-of-school population. And in Pakistan, it says twenty percent of the military budget could provide primary education for all children.

But experts say one country has been a real success story. For years, Botswana has used its wealth from diamond exports to finance universal primary education and to create a skills base for its growing economy.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Jim Tedder⁵.

1 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

2 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

3 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

4 crossfire   

n.被卷进争端

参考例句：

• They say they are caught in the crossfire between the education establishment and the government.他们称自己被卷进了教育机构与政府之间的争端。
• When two industrial giants clash,small companies can get caught in the crossfire.两大工业企业争斗之下，小公司遭受池鱼之殃。

5 tedder   

n.（干草）翻晒者，翻晒机

参考例句：

• Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆？特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
• Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆？泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网