新西兰英语 206 National Standards in Education

　　Last week there was a lot of talk by teachers, parents and MPs about bringing in national standards in primary schools. A national standard is a list of things that children must be able to do each year. Maybe the standard for year 1 is to be able to count to 100 by the end of the year. If the pupils can do this, they have reached the standard.
There are national standards already in schools but the difference will be that each school will need to send their results to the Ministry¹ of Education. Schools will need to show how many pupils are below the standard, have reached the standard or are above the standard. Teachers are worried that the Ministry of Education will make these results public so that people can see that School A has more pupils who reach the standard than School B.
Primary schools will have to focus² more literacy³ which means⁴ reading and writing, and numeracy which means arithmetic⁵. Pupils will be tested in many ways. Sometimes the teacher does not need to use tests but instead can listen to a child reading or can read what a child has written. This way, the teacher knows whether the child can read or write at the national standard.
The Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, says that one reason for bringing in these standards is find out and help those pupils who are below the standard. Another reason is so that parents can see exactly how their child is doing at school. Our schools do not use marks, grades, percentages or place in class so sometimes it is hard for parents to know if their child is doing well at school. School reports from next year will tell parents if their child has reached the national standard for reading, writing and arithmetic.

1 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

2 focus   

n.焦点，焦距；vi.聚焦，注视；vt.使聚焦，调焦，集中

参考例句：

• She was the focus of everyone's attention.她是大家注意的焦点。
• The noise made it hard for me to focus on work.噪音让我无法集中注意力工作。

3 literacy   

n.识字，有文化，读写能力

参考例句：

• I can't believe that he failed the literacy test.我无法相信他识字测试不及格。
• The literacy rate there is the highest in Central America.那里的识字率居中美洲之首。

4 means   

n.方法，手段，折中点，物质财富

参考例句：

• That man used artful means to find out secrets.那人使用狡猾的手段获取机密。
• We must get it done by some means or other.我们总得想办法把它干完。

5 arithmetic   

n.算术，算法；adj.算术学的，算术的

参考例句：

• The waiter got his arithmetic wrong.服务员算错了账。
• John was competing against James for the prize in arithmetic.约翰和詹姆斯比赛争夺算术奖。