More than six hundred delegates have been meeting in Burkina Faso this week to discuss education in Africa.The aim is to find ways to support economic growth by improving education and job training programs.

        The delegates include education ministers and representatives of civil society, business, labor and youth groups.The meeting, held every three years, is known as the Triennial.

        Ahlin Byll­Cataria is executive secretary of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa.His group organized the week­long conference.He says there is a missing link between education and employment in Africa.For example, schools need to improve technical training for students who do not continue with secondary education.

        Mr.Byll­Cataria says educational programs need to be reshaped to better fit the needs of employers.“For instance, where they have to train engineers, there is a lot of discussion between the schools and the companies in order to know the demands of the companies.So that is exactly what we also want to promote.”

        Several West African countries are working together to develop a network of trade and vocational schools.The idea is based in part on a successful example developed by Nigeria.

        Mr.Byll­Cataria says educators are working to connect government­run school systems with other groups that are helping educate students.These include nongovernmental organizations, community literacy centers and faith­based groups.Among these groups are Islamic schools，or madrasas that are expanding what they teach.Another subject for the conference was peace education.The idea grew out of the violence in Kenya related to elections in two thousand seven.The idea of peace education has spread to countries including Rwanda,     Somalia, Ivory Coast，Sierra Leone and Liberia.New technology offers a way for Africans living elsewhere in the world.For example，a professor from Burkina Faso living in the United States could use videoconferencing to teach a class back home.

Notes：

①representative n ． 代表，众议员，典型　②executive adj.实行的，执行的，行政的　③promote vt.促进，提升，升迁　④vocational school职业学校

Tips for summer reading

 Summer holds many of my strongest and mostpowerful reading memories. I remember sitting under a tree in the backyard as achild, reading AnneofGreenGables as the shadows crossed thegrass. I remember sitting in the back seat of the car on a long family roadtrip, sharing joke books with my brother and sister and laughing until wecried.I want all kids toenjoy the fun of summer reading, because summer reading has secret power. Here are some ways to motivate kids for summerreading.

Make children the curators(管理人)of their reading lives.

 Have students set summer reading goals forthemselves.Students can actas“chief curators” of the blog in turn so that over the course of the summereach of them takes on the responsibility of replying to posts and highlightinga popular title.

 Taking“curiosity walks” is a fantastic way tobring informational text into a child's reading list. These walks also provideopportunities for authentic writing. Have children take an inspiration notebookon a class walk outside and write down anything they see that they would liketo learn more about.

Make reading more like summer camp.

 Let's combine reading with hands­on activitiesand make reading more like summer camp. We can take field trips to the libraryand search the shelves for books on a topic chosen out of a hat.Then they can bring that creation into share on the first days of school.

A．It will set the stage for academicsuccess.

B．Bring the outdoors back into summerreading.

C．Select some books and share them withyour students.

D．Set up a summer blog so you can allshare recommendations.

E．These memories became importantstepping stones in my life.

F．It is important to build and shape astrong reading life during school months.

G．We can ask our students to createsomething in response to one of the books they've read.

       They seldom meet on the cricket or football fields, but the world's small island developing states are informally competing with each other to be the first to give up fossil fuels and embrace clean energy.

       52 low lying poor countries have made the energy plans, who traditionally heavily depend on imports of petrol and oil.The Caribbean island of Dominica is leading the world with plans to become carbon “negative” by 2020.The Maldives is not far behind, hoping to be carbon neutral(无温室气体排放)by 2020.Tuvalu and the Cook islands intend to generate all their electricity from renewables by 2020 and Timor­Leste, the poorest country in Asia, expects to provide solar electricity to all its 100，000 families by 2020.

        With Tonga, Samoa, Nauru, Mauritius and many other countries also volunteering to switch to solar, geothermal and wind energy, the target of the group of 52 small island developing states is a 45% cut in emissions in the next 18 years—considerably more than the world's rich countries who have pledged 12～18% cuts by 2020.

      “We are showing the world leadership，”said Dominican ambassador to the UN，Vince Henderson, at a UN development programme meeting ahead of next week's climate talks in Bonn, Germany.“This is about survival as well as economics.We are spending $220m a year importing fuel so it is in our interests.We are demanding that all countries take their responsibilities.”

      “Small island developing states can leap toward the goal of a poverty­free and prosperous future by changing their energy sectors，”said Barbados prime minister, Freundel Stuart.“We hope the international community has a unified voice, sharing our aspiration to become fully sustainable.”

          In a separate development, the world's 47 least developed countries (LDCs) will propose on Monday what they call a “bold new plan” to help speed up the UN climate talks.“Our countries cannot wait.We are already feeling the effects of climate change, but the time has come for us to be leaders in the international effort to address this global challenge.”said Pa Ousman Jarju, the chair of the LDC group.

Notes：

geothermal n ． 地热

        More than half of parents in the United States are helping, or have helped their adult children who have been hit by high unemployment and stagnant (无变化的) wages, according to a new survey. It showed that present economic conditions are discouraging young adults from leaving home and forcing those who have already gone, so­called boomerang_children,_to return.

     “Parents are continuing their financial involvement longer than we expected，” said Ted Beck, the president and CEO of National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE)．

        About 60 percent of parents questioned in the survey said they are helping their adult children who are no longer in school financially, providing housing and living expenses.

         For an increasing number of adult children, the situation is bad. Two­thirds of adult children, aged 18 to 39, who are not in school said they faced tougher financial pressures than previous generations, according to the survey. And nearly one­third of parents agreed that it was easier for them to earn money than for their children.

        Parents are helping their children out of genuine concern, and because they do not want to see them struggle. But Beck said that parents who make sacrifices to help their adult children should be cautious about their own finances.

     “If you are taking on extra debt or delaying retirement to help your adult child, you could be making a mistake and putting your own financial future in danger，” Beck warned.

        Boomerang children can also cause other problems for their parents. Thirty percent of parents said they had given up privacy since their adult children moved back home, while more than a quarter have taken on added debt, and ten percent have delayed retirement. But the survey also showed that 42 percent of adult children living at home are helping with the cooking and cleaning.

Observerssay Americans want more choices and fresh food when (choose)where and whatto eat. This trend is one reason why the fast food restaurant McDonald's hasstruggled financially.

 McDonald's is one of the best­known(restaurant) in the U．S.and even around the world，these days McDonald's income has dropped. The January earnings report broughtmore bad news. Worldwide sales dropped for the (eight) month in a row andeven more than expected.

 McDonald's (work) hard to get theircustomers back. In January, the company ran an advertisement during the SuperBowl. The football game is the most watched TV event every year in the U．S. McDonald's has wanted (reach)those viewers.

 Shake Shack is new kind of restaurantbecoming popular in the U．S.The restaurants are not “fast food”. They are known as “fast casual”． McDonald's is struggling to gettheir customers back, Shake Shack is doing well financially. The New York­basedburger chain had a very (success) IPO, or initial public offering, ofshares at the end of January. its first day of trading, Shake Shack wentfrom $21 a share to just under$46 a share.

 Shake Shack's a quality hamburger. It's fast food,but not“fast food” food. Being part of the “fast casual” trend has helped ShakeShack.