評論
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Britain
英國
Further Education: Technical upgrade
繼續教育：技術升級
The government turns its attention to the dire state of vocational training.
英國政府開始關注職業教育行業的糟糕現狀投入更多金錢。
Budget cuts are never pleasant.
削減預算從來都不使人滿意。
Yet the past few years have been particularly hard, says Gerry McDonald, the chief executive of New City College in east London.
東倫敦的新城市大學總裁Gerry McDonald稱過去的幾年非常難熬。
His institution is the result of a merger of three local colleges that have pooled resources in the past year partly to cut costs.
他的教育機構來自于三家當地大學的合并，一部分是為了削減成本而集中資源。
From April, it will serve around 4,000 16- to 18-year-olds (mainly studying full-time) and 15,000 adults (mainly part-time) .
自四月份起，在該學校接受教育的大概有四千名十六至十八歲的學生(主要為全日制)與一萬五千名成人學生(主要為半日制)。
Annual rounds of redundancies have “become a way of life”, Mr McDonald sighs.
McDonald 嘆氣道，每年一次的裁員 “已經成為一種生活方式了”。
Since 1990, funding for primary and secondary schools has soared.
從1990年開始，對中小學的資金支持飛漲。
Universities have been given the right to raise their incomes by levying tuition fees on students.
大學也已可以向學生收取學費以增加收入。
But there has been no such increase in cash for further education, the mostly vocational courses for over-16s.
但是對于繼續教育機構來說，并沒有類似的收入增長，其中大多數為十六歲以上人群提供職業課程培訓。
On March 8th Philip Hammond, the chancellor, turned his attention to the sector.
3月8日，總理Philip Hammond 把他的注意力放在了這個行業。
After announcing funding to pave the way for new selective grammar schools, a controversial objective of the prime minister, he promised a big injection of cash for further education and confirmed a shake-up of the chaotic way in which it is organised.
他宣布逐步推進支持步伐，一位備受爭議的首相，在宣布為促進新的選擇性文法類學校的發展提供資金支持后，他承諾將繼續為教育投入大筆資金并堅稱會平息組織中存在的混亂現象。
By 2022 colleges will get an additional ￡500m ($600m) a year, a 19% increase in the 16- to 19-year-old vocational-education budget.
在2022年之前，大學機構每年將額外獲得五億英鎊(約六億美元)，給16至19歲群體職業培訓課程的預算增加了19%。
Britain has historically put little emphasis on further education.
英國人有不重視繼續教育的歷史傳統。
In 2012 it placed 16th out of 20 member countries of the OECD in a ranking of the proportion of 20- to 45-year-olds who finished education with a vocational qualification.
在2012年經合組織20個會員國的20至45歲人群完成職業資質認證比例排名里，英國位列十六。
That may help explain why productivity growth has stalled, and why British youngsters are less literate and numerate than their peers in other rich countries.
這或許有助于解釋為何英國生產率增長停滯，為何英國年輕人相對于其他富裕國家的同齡人而言文化與數學素養更低。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
