VOA标准英语2011--Better Development through Education

Better Development through Education

 

The Global Partnership¹ for Education has launched a three-year effort to put 25 million children in the classroom for the first time and train 600 thousand teachers. It calls education one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future.

The partnership recently awarded nearly 170 million dollars in education grants to seven developing countries. It was the first round of grants since the organization changed its name a few months ago from the Fast Track Initiative. Fast Track was founded in 2002.

"It was clear to us that there had been a lot of evolution of the old Fast Track Initiative, which was essentially² something of a donors⁴’ club, I think. And what was clear from our perspective that we were not just a funding entity⁵. This was indeed a partnership,” said Charles Tapp, the global partnership’s senior replenishment⁶ advisor⁷.

That partnership includes nearly 50 developing countries, as well as donors, civil society groups, teacher organizations, the private sector⁸, international development banks and U.N. agencies.

“It really was time to project the concept of the depth and the power of this quite extraordinary partnership, which is now developed to forward the cause of education in the poorest countries of the world,” said Tapp.

Partnership's Board of Directors visits school in Kigali Rwanda.

The latest grants were awarded to Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia and Timor Leste.

The grant to Afghanistan is worth more than $55 .5 million..

“(The) Afghanistan government has made a very strong commitment of allocating⁹ as much of its own resources as it can for education. Historically, Afghanistan has had some very, very well educated people. (They) tend to come from sort of the urban centers, but obviously given the recent troubles and problems in Afghanistan over the last 20 years or so the quality of education has plummeted,” he said.

Ivory Coast received a 41 million dollar grant to help in its recovery from recent political violence. The fighting left many dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Tapp said, “One of the key areas that we’re actually providing support for under this program is actually looking to build and also repair classrooms, provision of textbooks. And another thing that we’re looking at has been working with the government to try and get school feeding programs in place. You get a number of areas of Cote d’Ivoire with very, very poor nutritional¹⁰ standards.”

More poor countries are now seeking help from the partnership.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “given the current global financial climate and the fact that there are still 67 million kids out of school around the world demand for our financing seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.”

With many donor³ countries are cutting back on spending, Tapp said the Global Partnership for Education must prove education is a good investment.

“Essentially I think the fundamental thing that is important to do is actually to be able to show people who are providing financing that their funds are achieving success. And it’s very clear that in the global partnership partner countries that you’re seeing more kids getting to school for longer and for a better education. So, primary school, completion rates are going up,” he said.

Tapp also said as education improves so does the health of a country.

The Global Partnership for Education plans two rounds of grants in 2012. The first is scheduled for May or June and the next in November.

At the recent high-level conference on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, the country’s prime minister said one of the most important factors in his country’s success is better education.

1 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

2 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

3 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

4 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》

5 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。

6 replenishment   

n.补充(货物)

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• Natural replenishment of this vast supply of underground water occurs very slowly. 靠自然补充大量地下水是十分缓慢的。

7 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

8 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。

9 allocating   

分配，分派( allocate的现在分词 )； 把…拨给

参考例句：

• Administrative practice generally follows the judicial model in allocating burdens of proof. 在分配举证责任方面，行政实践通常遵循司法模式。
• A cyclical multiplexing technique, allocating resources in fixed-time slices. 以固定的时间片分配资源的循环复用技术。

10 nutritional   

adj.营养的，滋养的

参考例句：

• A diet lacking in nutritional value will not keep a person healthy.缺乏营养价值的饮食不能维持人的健康。
• The labels on food products give a lot of information about their nutritional content.食品上的标签提供很多关于营养成分的信息。