British PM and Pop Singer Shakira Lead Education Effort (2/2)


"If we meet our goals in education, we will not just transform those children's lives for good. By consigning childhood illiteracy to history we will help make poverty history too."

As British treasury chief in 2006, Mr. Brown pledged $15 billion over 10 years for education in the developing world. Last month, Britain and France each agreed to support the education of eight million children in Africa by 2010.

Britain's commitment in this area dwarfs that of the United States, whose funding for global education aid is $465 million a year. Shakira will meet with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday to persuade them to pass a bill, which members of both parties have endorsed, to increase U.S. aid for education in developing countries to $3 billion a year by 2012. The Education For All Act was introduced last May, but has not passed either house of Congress.

Another event sponsored by the Global Campaign for Education this week will have an estimated five million students from more than 100 countries take part Wednesday in an effort to break the world record for the largest simultaneous lesson.

参考译文：

如果我们实现我们的教育目标，我们不仅使这些儿童的生活变好。而且，通过将儿童文盲归于历史，我们也将改变贫穷的历史。”

2006年曾任英国财政部长的布朗先生承诺，在10年内为发展中国家的教育投资150亿美元。上个月，英法两国都允诺将资助非洲八百万儿童的教育至2010年。

英国的承诺使美国相形见绌，美国对全球教育的资助为每年4.65亿美元。周二，夏奇拉将在美国国会与议员们见面，说服他们通过一项议案，增加对发展中国家的教育资助，到2012年增至30亿美元。该议案已得到两党成员的认可。但去年五月提出的“全民教育法”，还没有得到国会议院任意一方的批准。

这周，由全球教育运动联盟发起另一活动，预计在周三将有来自100多个国家的500万学生参加，试图打破有史以来最大课堂的纪录。





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