纽约英语口语网新版
英式新闻英语
第 10 课:Personal Finance Education in the U.K. 英国实行个人理财教育

Britain is launching a new scheme to improve the teaching of finance in schools. Personal finance is already part of the national curriculum in England and Wales while Scotland and Ireland are developing their own strategies. 英国正在开展一项新计划来改善中学的金融教育。在英格兰和威尔士,个人理财已成为国家规定课程的一部分; 而苏格兰和爱尔兰则在拓展自己的策略。

But according to the personal finance education group, the organization behind today's move, teachers don't always get the help they need. 但个人理财教育小组—今天这个举措背后的组织称,老师们不能总是得到他们需要的帮助。

Schools like Broadwater in Godalming in Surrey already use examples of dealing with money in lessons like maths. But unlike many other schools, it's taking things a stage further. 像在萨里的戈德明的布罗德沃特学校已在数学等课程中举出与金钱打交道有关的例子。但与其他的学校不同的是,它进行了更进一步的扩展。

Its teacher devised a course where people set up their own business, part of that involved money management. 老师们设计出课程让学生们建立自己的公司,其中牵涉到了金钱管理。

Nicky Wells (Broadwater School Teacher): They learned how to write checks, learned how to pay and fill in payment slips. They actually went and opened up their own bank accounts. 尼基·韦尔斯(布罗德沃特学校教师): 他们学会如何写支票,学会了如何填写支付帐单并付款。他们到银行开设了真正属于他们自己的帐户。

They had to understand budgeting. We looked at a wish list. They had to think about what sort of career they'd like, what kind of lifestyle they would like and actually budgeting from that wage. 他们还要懂得编制预算。我们研究希望购买的物品单,他们要考虑自己喜欢从事什么职业,喜欢怎样的生活方式,并根据自己的收入进行预算。

According to research carried out by BMRB, 81% of adults wanted their own children to learn personal finance at school, while 61% wished they'd been taught money matters in their own school days. 根据英国市场研究局所作的研究,81%的成人希望自己的孩子在学校学习个人理财,有61%的家长则表示希望在自己的学生时代也能学到有关金钱的知识。

By 2005, it's hoped that 128,000 school children will have had access to personal finance lessons, something that would go down well with parents. 预计到2005年,将有十二万八千名学生接受个人理财教育,这对家长来说是件好事。

Learning about money is already part of the timetable for some of the pupils at this school. But where personal finance is taught, the problem for teachers can be getting hold of the right material. 对于这所学校的小学生来说,有关金钱学习的内容已被列入课程表。实行个人理财教育,老师的问题就是能否找到合适的教学材料。

The moment students leave school, they have to face the prospect of dealing with complicated financial forms, as well as things like credit and budgeting. 当学生离开学校时,他们必须与各种复杂的金融表格打交道,如存款和预算。

Wendy Van Den Hende (Personal Finance Education Group): What we are trying to do is to make it easier for teachers. We want them to be able to put personal finance education examples into all different parts of their subject-areas, it could be citizenship, it could be the personal social health education. 温迪·范丹·亨德(个人理财教育组):我们试图让老师们教得更轻松一些,希望他们将个人理财教育的例子编入各种课程,比如公民课,或者个人社会健康教育。

Some teachers might find it useful in their IT lessons, whereas other teachers might find it useful to explore the moral dimensions of the religious education. 一些教师会发现可以在他们的信息技术课程中进行讲述,也有一些老师会发现可以在宗教课程的伦理道德教育中讲述这个问题。

If the project is a success, it's hoped that all children will eventually be taught the basics of personal finance as well as the three Rs. 如果计划获得成功,所有学生最终都将接受个人理财基础教育,像阅读、写作和算术一样普及。