阅读材料(中外教育).doc

口译主题：中外教育1. Education in ChinaSince 1949 when the Peoples Republic of China was founded, the Chinese government has always attached great importance to education and made a point of promoting the education rights of its population, especially of ethnic groups, children, women and the disabled. Through uninterrupted efforts in the past five decades, China has made significant progress in its education.A nine-year compulsory education is being made universal in stages in a planned way. Presently, 91% of Chinas population have access to primary education. Secondary education, higher education, vocational and technical education, diversified adult education, and education of ethnic minorities have also developed rapidly. All these have contributed to an education system that offers a complete range of subjects at various levels through diverse formats and media and promoted international exchanges and cooperation in education.China has set up an education system with the government as the major investor and social institutions, mass organizations, and individuals as co-investors. Currently, local governments play a key role in compulsory education, while the central and provincial governments are dominant in higher education. In vocational and adult education, industries, business as well as public institutions are playing a more and more important role.The Ministry of Education of the PRC is responsible for implementing related laws regulations and policies of the central government, planning development, coordinating education programs, and guiding education reform.Since 1978, the Chinese government has enacted a series of laws and regulations such as the Law of Compulsory Education of the Peoples Republic of China, the Education Law, the Law of Protection of Minors, the Law of Teachers, the Degree Statute of the Peoples Republic of China, and the Statute for Teacher Certification. The Ministry of Education has issued more than 200 administrative rules and regulations.(1) Major Types of Education in ChinaBasic education, vocational and polytechnic education, ordinary higher education and adult education are the four major types of education in China.A. Basic EducationBasic education refers to pre-school education, primary (six years) and general secondary education (with three years junior and three years senior middle schooling).Pre-school education has been generally universalized in big and medium-sized cities.| where nurseries and kindergartens offer either boarding or day facilities or a combination of both. In rural areas, there are nursery classes and seasonal kindergartens during busy farming seasons. In the remote or poor areas and areas inhabited by national minorities, there are also children activity centers, play groups, mobile kindergarten and mobile service called the “caravan”. In 1998, among the 11 provinces in the southwest and northwest part of China, 39.9% of children in the 22 poor counties had a three-year pre-school education and 66.7% a one-year pre-school education.Pre-school education is mainly provided by the state or collectives. In the cities, there are also various kinds of private or family-run nurseries. The kindergartens combine childcare with teaching. Their main tasks are to help children cultivate desirable and healthy habits; to develop their talents, helping them to express themselves orally and encouraging their interest in learning as a whole; to inculcate honesty, courage, discipline, cooperation, friendliness and good manners; and to teach them basic knowledge, simple arithmetic and something about music, drawing, and dancing.Up to the end of 2001, 99.3% of Chinas school age children were enrolled in primary schools, and 88.6% in regular junior middle schools. There were 1,520 special schools for deaf-mutes and mentally disabled children, and more than half of the handicapped children had access to basic education.B. Vocational and Polytechnic EducationVocational education consists mainly of education provided by secondary specialized schools, secondary technical schools, secondary vocational schools and post-secondary vocational and polytechnic schools, including various forms of short-term vocational and technical training programs. As of 1999, there were 3,962 secondary technical schools, 8,317 secondary vocational schools and 4,098 polytechnic schools throughout China, with a total enrollment of 11.15 million students.C. Ordinary Higher EducationOrdinary higher education refers to junior college, bachelors, masters , and doctoral degree programs. Junior college programs usually last two to three years, bachelors programs, four years (five years for medical and some engineering and technical programs); masters programs, two to three years; and doctoral programs, three years. In the five decades since 1949, China has built up a multi-layered, diversified and discipline-inclusive education system, which is playing an important role in speeding up the development of its national economy, and technology.In the 18 years from 1979 to 1997, 829,100 people completed their junior college and bachelor programs, or 2.58 times of the total in the 30 years prior to 1979. The number of students majoring in liberal arts, finance and economics, law, and physical culture has increased, while that of those majoring in science and engineering has declined slightly. In Chinas 1,071 colleges and universities, there are more than 3,400 research institutes and 150 state-level key labs and specialized labs. These institutions of higher learning have conducted some 50% of the award-winning natural science projects of China and played a leading role, or were actively involved, in nearly 60% of the award-winning philosophy and social science programs completed in the 8th Five-Year-Plan period.D. Adult EducationAdult education includes literacy classes, school education, and other programs devised for adults. Up to 1999, some 800 ordinary colleges and universities had provided correspondence- based and evening adult education programs for over one million urban residents, while in the rural areas, more than 200 million peasants have benefited from the various training programs set up for them.Higher education examination program for self-taught students has also made headway. It had already introduced 224 disciplines by 1998. Up to the first half of 2000, altogether 104.04 million people had registered for such examinations; and more than 2.9 million people had got their junior college and bachelors degree.E. International Exchange and CooperationInternational exchange and cooperation since 1978 has stimulated education reform and development in China and promoted the mutual understanding and friendship between China and other countries.Since 1979, China has sent some 320,000 students to more than 100 countries and regions, and 340,000 students from more than 160 countries and regions have come to study in China. In the meantime, 40,000 foreign experts and teachers have been invited to teach in our colleges. Chinese professors are also asked to give lectures abroad. In 1996, more than 5,000 of them went to over 30 countries to teach Chinese as well as other courses. In the same year, the number of Chinese and foreign scholars involved in international symposiums held in China and abroad amounted to 7,100.Meanwhile, China has got aid from UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP, and other international organizations. World Bank alone has granted a loan of US$14.7 billion for Chinas education development program, and aid from other organizations amounted to more than 100 million US dollars.2. Education Towards the 21st CenturyChinas Ministry of Education drew up an Action Plan for Invigorating Education Towards the 21st Century in December 1998. The major objectives of this Action Plan are as followsBy the year 2000 nine-year compulsory education will be made basically universal throughout the country, and in the meantime, illiteracy will be basically eliminated among young and middle-aged adults, and significant advances will have been made in implementing suzhi jiaoyu Essential-Quality-Oriented (EQO) Education. The system of vocational education and training and the system of continuing education are to be improved so that all new members of the urban and rural work force and all people in employment will have unhampered access to educational and training programs of all types and levels. Higher education will be actively and steadily developed, and the participation rate in higher education will reach 11% or so. Targeting at the objectives of the state innovation system, a group of highly qualified and innovative professionals will be fostered through training. Research and development will be strengthened in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to enable high-tech-based enterprises affiliated with universities to contribute to the cultivation of new growth points in economic development. Efforts will be made to deepen reforms and establish a basic framework for a new educational system that actually meets the needs of the economic and social development of the country.Based on the overall realization of the “two basic” objectives, that is, the universalization of nine-year compulsory schooling and the elimination of illiteracy among young and middle-aged people, by the year 2010, upper secondary education will have been popularized in urban and economically developed areas by steps. The average duration of schooling received by the Chinese people will catch up with that of the more advanced developing countries University participation rate will approach 15% with considerable enlargement of the scale of higher education. Quite a few institutions of higher learning and a number of key disciplinary areas or fields of study will attain or approach the level of first-rate institutions and centers of their kinds in the world. A lifelong learning system will be established in the main and provide: plentiful expertise support and knowledge innovation to the state innovation system and the modernization drive.(1) Essential-Quality-Oriented (EQO) EducationEQO education will be promoted earnestly in all educational sectors so as to improve the quality of the nation and develop its innovative capacity through implementation of the “Trans-century EQO Education Project”. Emphasis will be given as always to integrate moral education, intellectual education, physical education and aesthetic education organically into all the links of education in order to promote quality-oriented education. The harmonious development of all types of education will promote students all-round development and health.Primary and secondary education is important in the training of high-quality laborers and innovative talents. To improve moral education in schools, ceaseless efforts should be made to strengthen education in legal knowledge and discipline as well as education in patriotism, collectivism and socialist ideals, and to foster a sense of public morals. Education in the fine tradition of the Chinese nation and in our revolutionary tradition should be carried out, and education in labor skills and mental health should be conducted. Thus our students will be brought up with fine morals, sound minds and lofty sentiments.Physical and aesthetic education, being important components of EQO education, should be strengthened as well. Physical education helps students to become healthy and fit, while aesthetic education can enrich students with lofty ideals, stimulate their interest in study, promote their intellectual development, and enhance their creativity.(2) High-Level Creative Talent Development ProjectHigher education institutions (HEIs) should follow closely the frontiers of international scholarly pursuits in all major fields of study and become the bases for knowledge innovation and the cradle of high-level creative talents. These talented people should be brought up in an atmosphere of solidarity, teamwork and dedication. Efforts should be made to attract distinguished scholars from domestic and foreign institutions to work in Chinas leading universities, and these scholars should be able to lead their colleagues and graduate students to do research at the cutting edge of their own specialized fields.A number of young and middle-aged talents able to break new grounds in advanced research will be brought up to ensure that the knowledge innovation bases in HEIs will make fruitful innovations at the earliest possible date. 10,000 teachers will be selected batch by batch from HEIs as core members in various fields of study through competition all over the country.National key laboratories and open laboratories in HEIs will be open to visiting scholars, so that faculty members as well as the key disciplinary areas in question will greatly benefit from such openness.Steps should be taken to further improve the doctoral programs in HEIs and efforts should be made to steadily increase the number and size of post-doctoral programs. Special scholarships and/or fellowships for doctoral candidates will be granted.International academic exchanges should be expanded. Prominent overseas scholars especially professors from the best universities in the world, will be invited to lecture or do research for short periods of time. Various measures should be taken to encourage people who have studied abroad to return and render their services to our country or to help improve the quality of research and teaching in our HEIs in whatever ways they think fit.(3) Modern Distance Education and Lifelong LearningModern distance education is a new type of education that has come into being with the development of modern information technology. It is a major means of building up a lifelong learning system to meet the needs of people living in an era of knowledge economy. Distance learning in China has evolved through three stages: (1) Correspondence-based education, (2) Broadcast/TV-based education since the 1980s (an educational program known worldwide), and (3) Advanced distance learning based on information and internet technologies evolved since the 1990s. The Modern Distance Education Project implemented on the basis of existing distance education facilities and modern information technology enable people to use available educational resources more effectively. This is in line with the international trend of developing science and technology education. As China is short of educational resources, modern distance education is an ideal means to provide education for its large population.By the year 2000, all higher education institutions offering bachelors degree programs and over 1,000 secondary schools had been linked with CERNET so that 50,000 university faculty members had access to network at home. An integrated information system based on CERNET for on-line enrollment of students admitted to HEIs, computer-aided management of students records and status, and network service for graduate job seeker are being developed.A continuing education system should be established and perfected to meet the needs of lifelong learning and knowledge renewal. All HEIs with necessary conditions should provide continuing education courses and set up bases for conducting continuing education. With the help of the modern distance education network, on-line courses taught by the best teachers in the country will be provided. Thus the sharing of educational resources will be realized and the limit of time and space will be overcome. Various kinds of continuing education courses can be provided for the managerial and professional-technical personnel in all walks of life. The advantages of state-administered examinations for self-taught students at the tertiary and specialized secondary levels will be used to constantly increase educational access for all members of society.(4) Project of Commercializing High and New Technologies Developed in HEIsHEIs should give full scope to their advantages in the state innovation system, striving to promote innovation in knowledge and technology. They are called upon to make efforts in tackling key technical problems in economic construction, and render their services to speed up the transformation of traditional industries, readjust industrial structure, strengthen agriculture and work in rural areas, and foster new growth points in the national economy.Efforts should be made to strengthen cooperation between higher educational and research institutions, so that their respective advantages may be complementary to one another. Steps should be taken to facilitate linkages and cooperation between higher education institutions, research institutes, and enterprises to promote technological innovation and develop high-tech industries. Higher education institutions should be encouraged to transfer technology to enterprises, or launch high-and-new-technology-based (HNT-based) enterprises. This helps to explore new ways of wide-ranging cooperation between enterprises and HEIs extending from the stage of project initiation to final production of new products.To develop a cluster of HNT-based enterprises around one or a group of leading universities is a successful experience in the development of knowledge economy. Conditions should be created for setting up bases for the commercialization of high and new technologies and develop science and technology parks around higher education institutions, especially in places with a higher concentration of HEIs. They serve as an incubator of scientific and technological development. Faculty and students should be encouraged to start their own HNT-based enterprises.(Adapted from Action Plan for Invigorating Education Towards the 21st Century by the Ministry of Education, 1998.12.24)3. The New Zhejiang UniversityThe new Zhejiang