譯/張佑生
歷經2年封校 菲律賓總算開學了
Millions of students throughout the Philippines headed to school Monday as in-person classes began to fully restart for the first time in more than two years, ending one of the world's longest pandemic-related shutdowns in a school system already plagued by severe underinvestment.
全菲律賓數以百萬計的學生周一重新上學，這是兩年多來菲律賓首度全面恢復實體課程。原本就投資嚴重不足的學校系統，遭逢新冠疫情開始封校，時間之長在全球數一數二，現在終於結束了。
"We could no longer afford to delay the education of young Filipinos," said Vice President Sara Duterte, who is also the education secretary, as she toured schools in the town of Dinalupihan, about 40 miles northwest of Manila.
副總統兼教育部長薩拉．杜特蒂到首都馬尼拉西北方65公里處的迪納路匹罕市巡視學校時表示：「我國年輕人的教育再經不起耽擱」。
Even before the pandemic, the Philippines had among the world's largest education gaps, with more than 90% of students unable to read and comprehend simple texts by age 10, according to the World Bank.
甚至在新冠疫情爆發前，菲律賓的教育落差跟各國相比就十分巨大。世界銀行調查發現，菲國超過九成學童到了10歲仍無法閱讀和理解簡單的課文。
Schools in the Philippines have long suffered from shortages of classrooms and teachers, whose pay is low, leaving the vast numbers of poor children who cannot afford private schools and rely on the public system with inadequate teaching.
菲律賓的學校長期缺乏教室和師資。老師薪水低，導致念不起私立學校只能讀公立學校的眾多窮人家子女，無法接受適合的教導。
Now, after losing more than two years of in-person instruction, schools face the challenge of educating many students who have fallen even further behind. Although the Philippines offered online instruction during the pandemic, many students lacked access to computers or internet connections, and overburdened parents often found it hard to keep tabs on their children's remote learning.
如今，在面對面授課停擺兩年多後，學校面臨的挑戰是學習進度落後更多的學生。雖然菲國政府在疫情期間提供線上課程，許多學生卻沒有電腦或網路連線，負擔過重的父母親經常發現付不起子女遠距學習費用。
In some cases, students' already tenuous connection to school may have been severed entirely after so long away.
在某些個案，學生和學校的聯繫原本就斷斷續續，經過疫情封校這麼久的折騰，學生跟學校可能完全失聯。
In many other countries, as the negative effects of online learning became well documented, governments elected to send children back to classrooms even as the coronavirus continued to circulate widely.
在許多其他國家，線上學習的負面效應已經被詳細記載。縱然新冠疫情持續散布，政府仍決定讓學生返回教室。
But in the Philippines, government officials and parents remained hesitant, with fears that schoolchildren could bring the virus to homes crowded with multiple generations of family members, potentially overtaxing a creaky health care system.
但是在菲律賓，政府和父母親仍猶豫不決，擔心子女會把病毒從校園帶回家，殃及數代同擠一堂的家人，可能會讓已搖搖欲墜的健康照護體系負擔過重。
Starting in late 2021, the government began to experiment with conducting in-person classes in about 300 schools, but has begun expanding it to cover all primary and secondary schools. Currently only some schools are in-person all five weekdays; by November, all of the country's roughly 47,000 schools will be.
從2021年晚期起，菲國政府從300間學校開始實驗師生面對面上課，現已擴及到全國小學和國中。目前只有部分學校一周五天都是實體上課。到11月的時候，菲律賓全國約4萬7千所學校都會恢復實體上課。
