紐時賞析／聯合國機構報告 遠距教學惡化教育不均

Remote Class Exacerbated Inequalities, Report Says

聯合國機構報告 遠距教學惡化教育不均

In early 2020, as the coronavirus spread, schools around the world abruptly halted in-person education. To many governments and parents, moving classes online seemed the obvious stopgap solution.

2020年初，隨著新冠病毒蔓延，全世界的學校突然中止了實體教學。對於許多政府和家長，將課程轉往線上似乎是明顯的權宜之計。

In the United States, school districts scrambled to secure digital devices for students. Almost overnight, videoconferencing software like Zoom became the main platform teachers used to deliver real-time instruction to students at home.

在美國，各個學區爭先恐後替學生弄到數位裝置。幾乎在一夜之間，Zoom之類的視訊會議軟體，成為教師用於向在家學生即時授課的主要平台。

Now a report from UNESCO, the United Nations’ educational and cultural organization, says that overreliance on remote learning technology during the pandemic led to “staggering” education inequality around the world.

現在，聯合國教科文組織（UNESCO）的報告指出，疫情大流行期間過度依賴遠距學習技術，導致全世界「驚人的」教育不平等。

The report is likely to add fuel to the debate over how governments and school districts handled pandemic restrictions and whether it would have been better for some countries to reopen schools for in-person instruction sooner.

對於政府與學區怎麼處理疫情大流行的限制措施，以及部分國家是否應更早重新開放學校進行實體教學，這份報告可能會讓辯論更加激烈。

The UNESCO researchers argued in the report that “unprecedented” dependence on technology — intended to ensure that children could continue their schooling — worsened disparities and learning loss for hundreds of millions of students around the world, including in Kenya, Brazil, Britain and the United States.

UNESCO研究人員在報告指出，「史無前例」依賴科技意圖確保孩童可以繼續學業，對於肯亞、巴西、英國與美國在內的全世界數以億計學生，卻是加劇差距跟學習損失。

The promotion of remote online learning as the primary solution for pandemic schooling also hindered public discussion of more equitable, lower-tech alternatives, such as regularly providing schoolwork packets for every student, delivering school lessons by radio or television, and reopening schools sooner for in-person classes, the researchers said.

研究人員表示，推動遠距線上學習作為疫情期間主要學業解決方案，妨礙了更公平、低技術替代方案的公共討論，例如定期為每個學童提供學校作業袋，藉由廣播或電視提供學校課程，以及更快重新開放學校進行實體授課。

The UNESCO researchers recommended that education officials prioritize in-person instruction with teachers, not online platforms, as the primary driver of student learning. And they encouraged schools to ensure that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence chatbots concretely benefited students before introducing them for educational use.

UNESCO的研究人員建議，教育官員應優先考慮，由教師親自授課作為學生學習的主要驅動力，而不是線上平台。他們鼓勵學校，應確保人工智慧聊天機器人等新興技術確實有利於學生，才引入作為教育用途。

Education International, an umbrella organization for about 380 teachers unions and 32 million teachers worldwide, said the UNESCO report underlined the importance of in-person, face-to-face teaching.

全球約380個教師工會與3200萬名教師組成的傘型組織「國際教育組織」指出，UNESCO的報告強調了實體面對面教學的重要性。

“The report tells us definitively what we already know to be true: A place called school matters,” said Haldis Holst, the group’s deputy general secretary. “Education is not transactional, nor is it simply content delivery. It is relational. It is social. It is human at its core.”

該團體副秘書長霍爾斯特說，「這份報告明確告訴我們已知的事實：一個叫作學校的地方很重要。教育不是交易性，也不僅是內容交付。這是關聯性，社會性，其核心是人性」。

文／Natasha Singer　譯／周辰陽

說文解字看新聞

【周辰陽】

Stopgap指臨時應急的權宜之計，是可數名詞：Candles are a stopgap when the electricity fails.也可當形容詞：This is only a stopgap solution.

片語add fuel to something是讓衝突或爭論愈演愈烈，就是中文的「火上澆油」，fuel在這裡是不可數名詞，另有add fuel to the fire/flames的說法：Rather than providing a solution, their statements merely added fuel to the fire.

傘型組織umbrella organization是指一個協調好幾個成員組織的活動以促進共同目標的組織。CNN在7月一篇報導就提過紅十字會與紅新月會國際聯合會（IFRC）就是各國紅十字會與紅新月會成員組成的傘型組織。

Definitively是決定性或確定性的，沒得改：Drugs must be definitively proved safe before they're introduced.或是：The disease is very hard to diagnose definitively.