实战口语情景对话：Public or Private 公立大学还是私立大学

Todd: Hello, I'm here with Frederick. Now Frederick, you went to university in Canada?

托德：大家好，今天我要和弗雷德里克聊聊。弗雷德里克，你是在加拿大念的大学?

Fred: That's right, Todd.

弗雷德：是的，托德。

Todd: OK, and you have very strong views about universities in Canada. Can you please explain?

托德：好，那你很了解加拿大的大学。你能介绍一下吗?

Fred: OK, well, let me just give you a general idea of how education works in Canada. We don't have private universities in Canada. They're all public. Now what that means is that the universities are owned by the government, so there is the Ministry of Education that's in charge of creating the curriculum for the universities and so there's not much room for flexibility and since it's a government operated institution, things don't move very fast. If you want something to be done then their workers do not have so much incentive to help you because he's a worker for the government, and so I think it's not very efficient, however there are certain advantages of public universities, such as the fees being free, you don't have to pay for your education and so it's open for everybody and that's also one of Canada's main idea is to provide free education to everybody, but the system is slow. It is inefficient and does not work that well.

弗雷德：我来介绍一下加拿大的教育情况。加拿大没有私立大学，全是公立大学。这表明所有大学都是政府运营的，加拿大教育部负责大学课程的设置，大学是政府运营的机构，所以灵活空间有限，事情进展的速度不会太快。如果你想做件事，工作人员没有太大的积极性去帮助你，因为他是政府工作人员，我认为这样就导致效率不太高，不过公立大学也有优点，比如学费免费，你不用交纳教育费用，公立大学面向所有人开放，加拿大教育体系的核心内容之一就是为所有人提供免费教育，不过这种体系效率不高。不仅效率低，而且效果不太好。

Todd: But, yeah, I can see your point but in the United States we have many private universities and I think they're large bureaucracies also and maybe people don't act that much differently because somebody working for a private university, it's the same thing. They get paid for their job. I don't know if they're that much more motivated to help people. Also, we have a problem in the United States that usually only wealthy kids go to the best schools and it's kind of a problem actually.

托德：我明白你的观点，我们美国有很多私立大学，我认为私立大学也是庞大的官僚机构，而且工作人员的行为看起来没什么不同，因为为私立大学工作没什么不一样的。他们通过工作获得薪水。我不知道他们在提供帮助时是否有积极性。美国的问题是，只有有钱人家的孩子才能去好学校，这是问题所在。

Fred: I agree with you. I think that it is a problem because you're not giving the same equal access to education to everybody, only a few selected people can go to the best and the others go to the maybe less good universities. I agree with you that it's not easy but having only public universities might not be the best solution. Perhaps providing public university but also private university such as Japan for example where they have a system of private and public universities. Now, in Japan public university are considered to be the best and private universities are considered to be less good than public universities.

弗雷德：我同意你的看法。我认为这的确是个问题，因为这样没有让所有人享有同等的受教育权利，只有特定的少数人才能去好学校，而其他人只能去一般的学校。我同意你的观点，这个问题不容易解决，不过我觉得只有公立大学不设置私立大学可能并不是最好的解决方法。也许像日本这种既有公立大学又有私立大学的教育体系是种解决方法。日本的公立大学被认为是最好的学校，而私立大学则不如公立大学好。

Todd: Right. It's the exact opposite in the States.

托德：对，这与美国的情况完全相反。

Fred: So, as you see, it's hard to see which one is better.

弗雷德：可见，很难说哪种体系更好。

Todd: Right, good point.

托德：对，你说的没错。