1. In the last weekend before America’s election, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trumpwere on the stump in crucial** swing states**. Both had North Carolina, which narrowly voted for Mr Trump in 2020 and where our election model puts him just ahead, on their itineraries. In a state recently battered by Hurricane Helene, the Republican repeated false claims that the Biden administration was diverting relief funds to help migrants, as well as attacking Ms Harris on the economy and crime. At a rally for Ms Harris in Georgia, Spike Lee, a film director, urged voters to “do the right thing”—the title of one of his movies.
在美國選舉前的最後一個週末，卡馬拉·賀錦麗和唐納·川普分別在關鍵的搖擺州進行競選活動。兩人都將北卡羅來納州列入行程，此州在2020年僅以微小差距支持川普，而根據選舉模型顯示，川普目前稍稍領先。在最近遭受海倫颶風襲擊的北卡羅來納州，這位共和黨人再次聲稱拜登政府將救災資金挪作移民用途，這一說法並不屬實，並同時批評賀錦麗的經濟政策和治安問題。而在喬治亞州的一場賀錦麗集會上，電影導演史派克·李（Spike Lee）呼籲選民「做正確的事」——這也是他其中一部電影的名稱。
2. Berkshire Hathaway sold some 100m shares in Apple during** the third quarter. Warren Buffett said his investment firm had pared its stake in the American tech titan** to less than $70bn, down from $178bn in 2023. Berkshire, which has been a net seller of stocks for two years, has amassed large holdings of cash—totalling a record $325bn—and Treasury bonds.
波克夏·海瑟威在第三季度出售了約1億股的蘋果股票。華倫·巴菲特表示，他的投資公司已將其在這家美國科技巨頭的持股削減至不足700億美元，較2023年的1780億美元大幅下降。波克夏·海瑟威已連續兩年淨賣出股票，並積累了大筆現金，總額創下歷史新高達3250億美元，同時還持有大量美國國債。
3. Meanwhile Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed that Israel and America would receive a “crushing response to what they are doing to Iran”. His threat follows Israeli air strikes on Iran on October 26th, which killed four soldiers and reportedly damaged air-defence systems. The two countries have exchanged strikes on each other’s** territory** twice since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
同時，伊朗最高領袖阿里·哈梅內伊誓言，以色列和美國將會對「他們對伊朗所做的事」遭到「毀滅性回應」。他的威脅緊隨10月26日以色列對伊朗的空襲，該次空襲造成四名士兵死亡，並據報損壞了防空系統。自加薩戰爭爆發以來，這兩個國家已經在對方領土上互相發動了兩次攻擊。
4. Nvidia will replace Intel, once America’s chipmaking champion, in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It will join the stockmarket index of 30 big American firms before trading begins on November 8th. Nvidia, which specialises in designing **high-end **chips, has become the world’s second-most valuable company owing to widespread excitement over artificial intelligence. Intel, meanwhile, has struggled to update its more old-fashioned chipmaking business.
輝達（Nvidia）將取代曾經是美國晶片製造冠軍的英特爾（Intel），加入道瓊斯工業指數。輝達將於11月8日交易開始前成為該股市指數中30家美國大型公司之一。專注於設計高端晶片的輝達，因為人工智慧的廣泛熱潮而成為全球市值第二高的公司。與此同時，英特爾在更新其較為傳統的晶片製造業務方面遇到了困難。
5. Soldiers and volunteers continued with search and rescueoperations in Spain, after flash floods killed more than 200 people, mainly in and around the eastern city of Valencia. The toll, in what is already the worst flood-related disaster in the country’s modern history, is expected to rise. More heavy rainfall is expected this weekend.
在西班牙，士兵和志願者持續進行搜尋和救援行動，此前突發的洪水已造成超過200人喪生，主要集中在東部城市瓦倫西亞及其周邊地區。這場災難已成為該國現代史上與洪水相關的最嚴重災害，死亡人數預計還會上升。預計本週末還會有更強降雨。
**Extra reading – **
Private tutoring is booming across poorer parts of Asia
Governments are struggling to keep up with an educational arms race
Expensive, but worth it?
Sep 19th 2024|Delhi and Singapore
The moral of the story is clear in “12th Fail”, a recent Bollywood hit about a poor farm boy, Manoj, bent on passing India’s ruthless police exam. Persevere and be richly rewarded, it suggests. Yet for a film about education and meritocracy, the portrayal of Indian schools is dismal: teacher-abetted cheating is rife at Manoj’s local school. Where he ultimately finds success, and love, is not at school, but at a jam-packed tutoring centre in Delhi.
《第12次失敗》（12th Fail）這部寶萊塢近期熱映的電影傳達了一個明確的寓意：堅持不懈便能獲得豐厚回報。影片講述了一名貧窮農村男孩馬諾傑（Manoj）下定決心要通過印度嚴苛的警察考試的故事。然而，儘管這是一部以教育和功績制為主題的電影，卻呈現出印度學校的陰暗面：馬諾傑當地學校充斥著教師協助作弊的情況。他最終找到成功和愛情的地方並不是學校，而是位於德里擠滿學生的補習班。
Private tutoring is well known as an East Asian phenomenon. Apart from in China, most students in East Asia get it: 72% in Hong Kong; 79% at South Korea’s hagwons; 52% of lower-secondary schoolers, Japan’s main test-crammers, in the country’s juku. In China, where 38% of students (and 45% in cities) took private tutoring before a 2021 clampdown, many centres have simply gone underground. These businesses, whatever their flaws, exist alongside education systems that are highly effective and well-funded.
私人補習廣為人知是東亞的現象。除中國外，東亞多數學生都接受補習：在香港有72%的學生參加；在南韓的「學院」有79%；在日本的「塾」，52%的國中生接受主要針對考試的補習。在中國，2021年打擊補習之前，有38%的學生（城市中則達45%）參加了私人補習，許多補習中心如今已轉入地下運營。儘管這些機構存在一些缺陷，但它們與高效且資金充足的教育體系並存。
The hard way
But now private tutoring is on the rise in poorer parts of Asia. The scale is huge. Although the data are scattered and shoddy, we have tried to estimate tutoring’s prevalence in South and South-East Asia, excluding Singapore, where the education system more closely resembles those in East Asia. From Pakistan to Indonesia, we reckon that roughly 258m children get private tuition.
The biggest market is in India. Fully 31% of rural Indian schoolchildren under 15 now get private tutoring, up from 23% in 2010; in some poorer states, three in four do (see chart). Tax revenue from Indian tutoring centres has more than doubled since 2019. But even removing India from the mix still leaves a tutoring tally of 131m children, by our estimate.
如今，私人補習在亞洲較貧困地區也在興起，規模龐大。儘管數據零散且不完善，我們試圖估計南亞及東南亞（新加坡除外）私人補習的普及情況。從巴基斯坦到印尼，我們估計約有2.58億名兒童參加私人補習。最大的市場在印度。印度農村地區15歲以下學生中，接受私人補習的比例已從2010年的23%增至31%；在一些較貧困的州，比例高達四分之三（見圖表）。自2019年以來，印度補習中心的稅收收入已增加了一倍以上。即便不計入印度，該地區的補習人數仍達1.31億人。
The first reason for the growth is gaps left by formal education systems. In poorer parts of Asia, the state often struggles to provide good schools. In this century, as primary education has neared universality, the share of children enrolled in secondary school rose by 24 points in South Asia and by 16 percentage points in the rest of Asia, according to the World Bank. Yet over the same period, government education spending as a share of GDP has stagnated or fallen across much of the region.
補習需求增加的第一個原因是正式教育系統的不足。在亞洲較貧困地區，政府往往難以提供良好的學校。根據世界銀行的數據，本世紀以來，隨著小學教育接近普及，南亞中學入學率提升了24個百分點，亞洲其他地區上升了16個百分點。然而，同期政府教育支出佔GDP的比重在該地區大部分地區停滯或下降。許多地區因此削減了教師薪資和教科書。在亞洲最貧困的國家之一柬埔寨，估計有82%的學生參加私人補習，大多數是由自己低薪的教師提供補習以增加收入。學校最終難以提供高質量的教育，有些甚至完全崩潰。然而，許多亞洲的教育系統依賴高風險考試來篩選學生，因此家長轉而依賴補習老師。
In many places this has led to cuts to teachers’ salaries and textbooks. In Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, an estimated 82% of students take private tutoring, mostly from their own low-paid teachers seeking a salary top-up. Schools end up less equipped to deliver results, and the worst fall apart. Yet many Asian systems sort children through high-stakes exams. So parents turn to tutors.
A second factor is heightened social competition, driven by a growing middle class and a greater demand for a limited number of university places. Urbanisation also plays a role: children in cities are likelier to get private tutoring than rural ones, thanks to the greater supply of tutors and better internet access. In India, where cities have added 200m residents in 20 years, many newly urbanised parents think that buying their children tutoring will help them get a professional-class job. In Delhi, Mohammad Shahzad, a supervisor at a generator manufacturer, pays 2,800 rupees ($33) a month to have his two daughters tutored, a 30% addition to the usual school fees. His daughters’ teachers are competent, but Mr Shahzad feels that tutoring, despite its expense, is worth it. “It’s like having one meal: you survive, but with two or three, you’re healthier,” he says.
第二個因素是日益激烈的社會競爭，由中產階級的壯大和大學學位需求增加所驅動。城市化也扮演了重要角色：相比鄉村，城市的孩子更容易獲得補習，因為城市擁有更多的補習老師及更好的網絡接入。在印度，城市人口在20年間增加了2億，許多新遷入城市的家長認為，給孩子報補習班可以幫助他們獲得專業階層的工作。在德里，一位發電機製造廠的主管穆罕默德·沙赫扎德每月花費2800盧比（33美元）為兩個女兒提供補習，這比通常的學費增加了30%。沙赫扎德表示，儘管補習費用昂貴，但仍然值得。「這就像吃一頓飯：你可以生存，但吃兩三頓，你會更健康」，他說道。
The final factor is an arms-race dynamic. Private tutoring is an anxiety industry: if your neighbour’s children get private tutoring and yours don’t, they risk falling behind. This holds whether tutoring demand originates from the pressures of a rigorous schooling system or the desire to flee a failing one. The availability of online tutoring, supercharged by the pandemic, has made it easier to get in on that arms race.
最後一個因素是一種競爭加劇的「軍備競賽」動態。私人補習成為一個焦慮的產業：如果鄰居的孩子參加補習，而你的孩子沒有，他們可能會落後。無論需求是來自嚴格的學校系統壓力，還是逃離失敗教育系統的願望，這一點都成立。隨著疫情推動在線補習的普及，這場競賽變得更加容易參與。
Even so, research measuring the effectiveness of tutoring has produced mixed results, says Mark Bray, an expert on Asian private tutoring. Partly this is because of its enormous diversity. One study in rural India found that students who had private tuition got higher reading and maths scores than those who did not, on a par with an extra year of school. But other research, in Sri Lanka and China, finds little or no effect on results.
然而，關於補習效果的研究結果不一。亞洲私人補習專家馬克·布雷指出，部分原因是補習形式多樣。印度農村的一項研究發現，參加補習的學生在閱讀和數學成績上高於沒有補習的學生，相當於多上了一年學校。但在斯里蘭卡和中國的其他研究中，則顯示補習對成績影響甚微甚至沒有影響。
Another brick in the wall
The costs of private tutoring can be large. Studies show some children in private tutoring sleep less well. The stresses extend to parents’ wallets. Umesh Sharma, a chauffeur in Delhi, spends 1,200 rupees a month to have his two sons tutored: 4% of the city’s average monthly income and about as much as their school fees. In other parts of India, it is worse. In West Bengal nearly half of all education spending, public and private, goes on coaching.
另一磚墊牆
私人補習的成本不小。研究顯示參加補習的兒童睡眠質量較差，壓力也延伸至家長的經濟負擔。德里一位司機烏梅什·夏爾馬每月花費1200盧比為兩個兒子補習，佔該城市平均月收入的4%，大致相當於學費。在印度其他地區情況更嚴重。在西孟加拉邦，幾乎一半的教育支出（包括公立和私立）都用於補習。
One big worry is that in some places private tutoring is eroding public education. In Nepal and Cambodia, schoolteachers withhold parts of the curriculum for their own paid tutoring after school. The incentive is clear: in Cambodia, low-paid teachers who offered tutoring doubled their salaries. In Bihar, India’s poorest state, a recent survey by JJSS, an NGO, found that dozens of dilapidated government schools had almost entirely outsourced their educational functions to private centres. Government schools have been reduced to “merely providing a midday meal and arranging examinations”.
一個重要的擔憂是，在某些地方，私人補習正在侵蝕公共教育。在尼泊爾和柬埔寨，一些學校教師會保留部分課程內容，以供課後有償補習時授課。其誘因顯而易見：在柬埔寨，低薪教師提供補習後收入翻倍。在印度最貧困的比哈爾邦，非政府組織JJSS的最新調查發現，數十所破舊的政府學校幾乎完全將教育職能外包給私人補習中心。政府學校淪為「僅僅提供午餐和安排考試」。
What to do? South Korea spent four decades trying and failing to suppress private tutoring, before such efforts were ruled unconstitutional in 2000. Similarly interventionist approaches, like China’s rash crackdown, succeed only in driving tutoring underground. Some governments are relaxed: the education ministry in Thailand says that “the state must begin with an assumption that private tutoring does not reduce social welfare.” Others are experimenting. In response to a recent string of suicides, this year India’s education ministry introduced rules banning bigger coaching centres from enrolling students aged younger than 16. Private tuition is here to stay. But it could be managed more effectively. ■
應對之道？南韓花了40年試圖禁止補習，但未果，最終在2000年被裁定此舉違憲。類似的干預措施，如中國的嚴厲打壓，最終只會將補習推向地下。一些政府對此較為放鬆：泰國教育部表示，「國家必須基於私人補習不會降低社會福利的假設。」其他國家則在嘗試新方法。針對近期一系列自殺事件，印度教育部今年引入新規，禁止大型補習機構招收16歲以下學生。私人補習將持續存在，但可以更有效地加以管理。■
--
Hosting provided by SoundOn
