VOA标准英语2010年-Rural Sierra Leone Needs Trained Teach

Getting an education in rural Sierra Leone is difficult.  Thousands of schools were destroyed during the civil war and many teachers fled to the capital or left the country.  The biggest challenge to universal primary education is a severe shortage of trained teachers, especially in rural areas. 

With one year of secondary school under his belt, 50-year-old Francis Sao Turay is the sole teacher at the RC Primary School in Kasokra, a small village in the Sula mountains of central Sierra Leone.

Almost 50 children, from toddlers to teenagers, squeeze onto wooden benches in a makeshift structure.  Turay arranges them according to class and then teaches one class at a time, trying to keep the others quiet.

Turay says it is very difficult to teach in these conditions.  When you only have one classroom, but you have four different classes, you can only separate them by benches.  So when you talk to class four, he says, then it is difficult to teach the little kids in class one.  Turay says he finds it especially hard because he teaches just from his own experience.

The school, set up by Catholic missionaries¹, is registered with the government, but has no qualified² teacher.  Village leaders chose Turay to teach in an effort to keep their children in school.

Sierra Leone's 2004 Education Act made primary education free in Sierra Leone.  Since the civil war, the government has increased primary school enrollment³ dramatically.  The number of students doubled between 2000 and 2005, due in part to the introduction of free primary education.  The government also subsidizes exam fees.

But for community schools like the one at Kasokra, there is little government support.  Parents here rely on peanut and rice farming to survive. They have little cash to pay for the indirect costs of education like school uniforms, transport, lunch money, tutoring fees and books.

Turay teaches without a salary, accepting instead offers of rice and farm-labor as payment.

Horatio Nelson-Williams is coordinator⁴ of the Education For All program at Sierra Leone's Ministry⁵ of Education.

"One of the major challenges is to get qualified teachers to teach in rural schools," said Horatio Nelson-Williams. "You know, that is the major challenge.  You know.  So recently what we did last year we organized a workshop on formulating⁶ a new remote area policy.  In the past, the remote area policy was working very well.  But with inflation and all of the economic challenges that have taken place in the world, the allowances that were given to teachers for working in the remote areas have now become ridiculously low."

Nelson-Williams says the government does not have the funds to support community schools or train community teachers.  He says they do get support from NGOs and the United Nations.

In 2009, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma launched a review of the education system following abysmal⁷ exam results at both the primary and secondary level.

Education coordinator Madiana Samba, of the advocacy organization Action Aid International, says the government must address the shortfall if they are to achieve real universal primary education.

"We need to train those teachers out there that are really not trained," said Madiana Samba. "Because if you are talking about a teaching force of over 35,000 and you are saying 40 percent of those ones are untrained and unqualified, then it is a big issue."

Turay would like to become a fully⁸ qualified teacher so he can provide a better education for the children in Kasokra and also make a decent wage.  But he cannot afford to pay for the three-year distance-learning qualification program offered by the government.

Less than half of Sierra Leone's population can read and write.  But resources are limited in this post-conflict state where the education sector⁹ says it needs almost $250 million to meet the goal of free basic education for all children. 
 

1 missionaries   

n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some missionaries came from England in the Qing Dynasty. 清朝时，从英国来了一些传教士。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The missionaries rebuked the natives for worshipping images. 传教士指责当地人崇拜偶像。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

3 enrollment   

n.注册或登记的人数；登记

参考例句：

• You will be given a reading list at enrollment.注册时你会收到一份阅读书目。
• I just got the enrollment notice from Fudan University.我刚刚接到复旦大学的入学通知书。

4 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

5 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

6 formulating   

v.构想出( formulate的现在分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示

参考例句：

• At present, the Chinese government is formulating nationwide regulations on the control of such chemicals. 目前，中国政府正在制定全国性的易制毒化学品管理条例。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• Because of this, the U.S. has taken further steps in formulating the \"Magellan\" programme. 为此，美国又进一步制定了“麦哲伦”计划。 来自百科语句

7 abysmal   

adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的

参考例句：

• The film was so abysmal that I fell asleep.电影太糟糕，看得我睡着了。
• There is a historic explanation for the abysmal state of Chinese cuisine in the United States.中餐在美国的糟糕状态可以从历史上找原因。

8 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

9 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。