AS IT IS 2016-05-08 School in a Pakistani Public Park Helps Poor Children

AS IT IS 2016-05-08 School in a Pakistani Public Park Helps Poor Children

A man in Pakistan who did not go to school as a child because he was too poor is now working to help children get an education.

It is estimated¹ that Pakistan has 25 million children who do not go to school. That is the second-highest number in the world. Only Nigeria has more. Many Pakistani children must work to earn money for their families.

Mohammad Ayub was once one of those children. He is now a firefighter. He also operates a small school. VOA recently visited the school, in the capital Islamabad.

Ayub started with just one student in 1982. He saw a boy cleaning cars for days. He asked him: “Why don’t you go to school?”

The boy answered that his parents were dead and he had to work to help support his five brothers and three sisters. That affected² Ayub. He was also an orphan³ and he, too, had five brothers and three sisters he worked to help support.

He says “when my father died, everyone who came to the funeral said they were sorry, but no one helped.”

He sold newspapers and did other work to earn enough money to pay school fees for his brothers and sisters.

Ayub wanted to help the young boy who washed cars, but he did not have enough money to pay the boy’s school fees. So he offered to teach him.

Today, Ayub teaches many children at his informal school in a public park. Some of the children attend other schools in the morning, but come to Ayub in the afternoon to get help with their homework.

Ayub has helped thousands of poor children since he began teaching⁴. Many of them come from very poor areas near the park called slums⁵.

“I used to particularly argue with kids who worked -- I used to ask girls ‘Why are you washing someone’s dishes or their clothes? Why don’t you study?’”

One of the children he urged to attend classes was Farhat Abbas. Ayub found him working with his friends about 12 years ago.

“He followed us back home. He told our parents he wanted to teach us and asked them to come check out his school.”

Today, Abbas is taking classes at a college and is helping⁷ Ayub.

While many children are out of school, those who do attend classes often get a poor quality education.

Information gathered by an aid group shows half of all Pakistani children in the 5th grade do not understand basic mathematics and cannot read a story in their language.

A policy group based in Islamabad reports Pakistan spends less on education than any other country in South Asia.

Words in This Story

orphan – n. a child whose parents are dead

funeral – n. a ceremony held for a dead person

informal – adj. not official

park – n. a piece of public land in or near a city that is kept free of houses and other buildings and can be used for pleasure and exercise

slum⁶ – n. an area of a city where poor people live and the buildings are in bad condition

check out – v. to see; observe; inspect

basic – adj. forming or relating to the first or easiest part of something

1 estimated   

adj．根据估计的

参考例句：

• She estimated the breadth of the lake to be 500 metres. 她估计湖面大约有500米宽。
• The man estimated for the repair of the car. 那人估算了修理汽车的费用。

2 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

3 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。

4 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

5 slums   

n.贫民窟，贫民区( slum的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These slums are an epitaph to the housing policy of the 1960s. 这些贫民窟是20世纪60年代住房政策的遗迹。
• the poverty and squalor of the slums 贫民窟的贫穷和肮脏

6 slum   

n.贫民窟，贫民区；vi.（因好奇而）逛贫民区

参考例句：

• These children came from a slum area.这些孩子来自贫民窟区。
• What a wretched existence the people in the slum lead!这个贫民窟里的人们过着多么令人悲惨的生活啊！

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。