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1、A special report on South AfricaLast in class 南非教育世界倒数Education needs to take a giant leap教育需要飞跃式的进步。Jun 3rd 2010 | From The Economist print editionMore snakes than ladders in South Africas schools南非学校就像掷筛子游戏中蛇比梯子多。SOUTH AFRICA spends 6.1% of its GDP on education, a bigger chunk than most other coun
2、tries, yet its results are among the worst. In the World Economic Forums latest Global Competitive Index it ranks bottom (out of 133 countries) in both maths and science education. In the 2006 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study it also came bottom (out of 40 countries), as it did i
3、n the 2003 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (out of 48 countries). Humiliated, it withdrew from the next TIMSS in 2007. The difficulty with such studies is that they reflect averages. At the top, South African students do as well as anyone, but the great majority are performing way be
4、low their capabilities.南非把GDP的6.1%投入教育事业，比世界其他大部分国家的比例都大，然而，南非的教育情况仍在教育最差的国家行列。世界经济论坛最新发布的全球竞争力指标中，南非的数学和科学教育（在133个国家中）垫底。2006年的国际阅读素养进展研究中南非（在40个国家中）也名列倒数，这和南非2003年在国际数学和科学趋势研究（TIMSS）中（48个国家中）排名情况相同。因为觉得屈辱，南非没再参加在2007年举行的那届国际数学和科学趋势研究。麻烦在于这些研究体现的是平均水平。要是比尖子生，南非学生的表现一点也不差，但绝大部分学生的表现大大低于他们的能力。Graeme
5、Bloch of the Development Bank of Southern Africa describes South Africas education system as a “national disaster”. He reckons 80% of schools are “dysfunctional”. Half of all pupils drop out before taking their final “matric” exams. Barely 11% get a good enough pass to qualify for university. Of tho
6、se who do, most are found to be functionally illiterate and innumerate when they get there, requiring intensive first-year remedial classes to bring them up to scratch. A third of students drop out in their first year at university. After five years only one in three has obtained a (three-year) degr
7、ee. Even then, employers say that many graduates emerge inarticulate, unable to think critically and barely able to read or write.南非发展银行的格莱姆布洛赫（Graeme Bloch）把南非的教育系统描述成“国家的灾难”。他预测80%的学校“不能正常运行”。一半的学生还没到参加高中毕业考试时就辍学了。勉勉强强有11%的学生能取得不错的成绩最终获得上大学的资格。这些获得上大学资格的学生中，大部分在进了大学后要运用知识的时候几乎又成了半文盲，既不会写也不会算，需要一年的
8、强化补习课来为学习大学课程做好准备。1/3的学生在大学一年级辍学回家。五年之后，只有1/3的学生获得（三年制的）学位。即便这样，雇主们还说很多大学毕业生会有表达不清、不能批判地思考的问题，而且阅读和写作也差强人意。Black South Africans generally do much worse than whites. Almost 13% of black adults are functionally illiterate, compared with 0.4% of whites. Fewer than 2% of black adults have a degree, comp
9、ared with 17% of whites (which is still low by international standards). Barely a third of black pupils pass their matric, whereas almost all whites do. And only around one in 20 black students ends up with a degree, compared with almost one in two whites. It is not that the blacks are any less brig
10、ht; some perform brilliantly. They are just massively disadvantaged.南非黑人表现整体比白人差。将近13%的成年黑人是半文盲，而白人只有0.4%。不到2%的成年黑人有学位，而白人却有17%（这也还是低于国际水平）。仅1/3的黑人学生通过高中毕业考试，而大部分白人学生都能通过。只有大约5%的黑人学生最终拿到学位，而大约50%的白人学生能拿到。这并不是说黑人学生不够聪明；一些黑人学生表现得非常棒。只不过是整体表现差而已。Under apartheid blacks were deliberately kept down, given
11、 a vastly inferior education and banned from most skilled jobs. Explaining the governments new Bantu (black) education policies to the Senate in 1954, Hendrik Verwoerd, then minister for native affairs, famously asked: “What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in p
12、ractice?” By the end of Verwoerds decade as prime minister in 1968 the government was spending 16 times more on the education of a white child than a black one.以前，种族隔离制度让黑人受到刻意压制，受到的教育普遍较次，也禁止黑人从事大多数有技能要求的工作。1954年，亨德里克维尔沃尔德（Hendrik Verwoerd），当时的土著人事务部部长，在向参议员解释新的班图语（黑人）教育政策，有一个问题非常有名，即“给一个班图小孩教数学，可却
13、不能在生活中应用，那教数学还有什么用呢？”1968年，维尔沃尔德担任总理的十年任期结束的时候，政府用于白人小孩的教育经费是用于黑人小孩的16倍多。Spending per pupil is now the same for black and white, yet black children generally continue to fare worse than whites because most of them continue to attend vastly inferior schools. Although public education was desegregated
14、 in 1994, most former black schools remain overwhelmingly black because they are generally in deprived black areas, whereas the former white schools tend to have a good racial mix because middle-class blacks have moved into their catchment areas. Catering for just 10% of all pupils, the former white
15、 schools are usually much better endowed, better run and far more disciplined than former black schools.如今，黑人小孩和白人小孩的教育经费投入一样多，然而，与白人小孩相比，黑人小孩的表现普遍较差，因为大部分黑人小孩所上的学校仍然很次。尽管1994年废除了公共教育隔离制度，大部分以前的黑人学校中绝大多数学生仍然是黑人，因为这些学校通常都在教育资源匮乏的黑人区，而原先的白人学校种族混合情况较好，因为中产阶级的黑人搬到了能够去指定学校就学的区域。由于只为学生总数的10%提供教育机会，所以原先的白人
16、学校得到更好的赞助，更好的管理，纪律也比原先的黑人学校强很多。Angie Motshekga, the schools minister, admits that black schools are “in crisis”. Fewer than 10% have libraries or laboratories. Very few offer extracurricular activities. Most of their teachers are not properly qualified. Black schools tend to lack leadership and are often plagued by drugs, alcohol and sex abuse (by teachers as well as older boys). Their pupils generally come from poor, often
