胡锦源 供稿

The outbreak of Covid-19 disrupts the normal functioning of curricular systems worldwide. School closure, as a precautionary measure against the spread of pandemic, confines children at home and makes teaching more challenging. Furthermore, protracted home study may be harmful to both physical and mental health of children. Exclusion from necessary social intercourse and confinement within a narrow space may cast them into anxiety, claustrophobia, and loneliness. Also, long-time insulation at home may decrease the frequency of their physical exercise and weaken their constitution. On top of these problems which come after Covid-19, there are other issues which exist before the advent of pandemic and come to the fore amid the state of exception it generates.

新冠疫情阻碍了全球教育系统的正常运行。为防止疫情传播，学校被关闭，学生只得居家学习，这给教学带来了更多挑战。同时，久居在家也会对儿童的身心健康造成不良影响。由于缺乏必要的社交，长时间置身于狭小的空间之中，学生们可能会陷入焦虑、幽闭恐惧与孤独之中。此外，长期居家隔离可能会使他们减少运动，体质下降。除去这些新冠疫情带来的直接问题，原本存在的其他问题但也因为受疫情影响而凸显出来。

During the spread of Covid-19, international and social inequality in education begin to surface and grow intensified. For example, many poor children from the Third World countries have met increasing difficulties in having access to educational resources after school closure. In Indonesia, many children live in rural areas devoid of Internet connections and telephone signals, which makes distance-learning inaccessible to them. Some of them have to travel several miles from their residence to places equipped with network devices. To make the situation worse, their parents are not well-educated and open-minded enough to embrace new technologies. In Syria, many children had dropped out of school even before Covid-19 swept the country because of its interminable military conflicts.

在新冠肺炎疫情蔓延期间，国际和社会教育不平等开始显现并且加剧。比如，许多第三世界的贫困儿童在学校停课后更加难以获得教育资源。在印度尼西亚，许多儿童居住在缺少网络连接和电话信号的农村地区，根本无法进行远程学习。为接受网络教育，其中一些儿童不得不离家跋涉几英里前往有网络设备的地方。而他们的父母由于受教育水平不高，对新技术采取保守的态度，这使得他们的境况难上加难。在叙利亚，即便在发生疫情之前，许多儿童就因为国家连年战乱而早早辍学。

During this hard time, many individuals and organizations are devoting themselves to safeguarding the right of education for children who are eager to lift themselves out of poverty. Henrikus Suroto, a 57-year-old Indonesian teacher, spends about six hours every day on the way to teach his students at their homes, regardless of any inclemency. Amina Hassan, a Kenyan teacher at Dadaab camp, teaches refugee children English through camp’s radio system. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) sees it as its mandate to help children all over the world gain access to education through media such as Internet, radio, and television. It once introduced radio scripts from other countries to Rwanda and made necessary adjustments so that they can be aired on Radio Rwanda. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) takes the lead to encourage different communities to work together to promote universal availability of knowledge. It has made an appeal to establishing a knowledge-sharing platform which provides educational resources open to adaptation and redistribution.

在这一艰难时期，不少个人和组织致力于捍卫渴望摆脱贫困生活的儿童的受教育的权利。印度尼西亚57岁的教师亨里克森・苏拉特每天花费约6小时的时间前往学生家中授课，风雨无阻。肯尼亚教师阿米娜·哈桑通过广播为达达布难民营的儿童们上英语课。联合国儿童基金会（UNICFF）将帮助全世界儿童通过互联网、广播和电视接受教育作为自己的使命。它曾将别国的广播课程引入卢旺达，经过调整后在卢旺达电台播出。联合国教科文组织(UNESCO)牵头鼓励团体间进行合作，共同促进知识的普及。它呼吁建立一个知识分享平台，用于提供可供改编和再分配的教育资源。

There is still a long way to go to deal with the unequal distribution of educational resources all over the world. For Third World children, access to high-quality education is the only way to get out of the cycle of poverty imposed upon generations. No one is an island independent of others. It is in the state of isolation that one grows aware of the interconnectedness of mankind. The epidemic deepens people’s understanding of the essence of education: The sharing of knowledge which transcends the limitation of time and space, social discrepancy, and difference of skins. 

要解决全球教育资源分布不均的问题还有很长的路要走。对于第三世界儿童而言，接受高质量的教育是脱离世代贫困的宿命的唯一途径。没有人是独立于他人的孤岛。在孤立的状态下人们更能认识到人与人之间紧密相连。疫情加深了人们对于教育本质的理解，即超越时间和地点限制、社会和种族差异的知识共享。

protracted adj. 长期的

claustrophobia n. 幽闭恐惧症

constitution n. 体质

interminable adj. 冗长的

inclemency n. 恶劣的天气

mandate n. 使命