1. Sleepy Teens, Early Classes: Your Comments
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Last week, we talked about the conflict between sleepy teenagers
and early morning classes. Many people commented on our website and
Facebook page.
For example, Damla Ece in Turkey wrote: I agree with the idea of
starting lessons later so teenagers can feel better in the morning. But
sleeping more than seven hours can be wasting time for students.
Tran in Vietnam disagreed: I think teenagers, on the average, need
eight to ten hours of sleep everyday. It's useless trying to force them to
concentrate while they can't concentrate.
Getty Images/Stockbyte Platinum Enilton Neymakes in Brazil goes
to sleep late and wakes up in the afternoon. That's my life, but at least I
am studying.
Afshin Heydari from Tehran says schools should start early to avoid
heavy traffic later in the morning. And Suze from Jordan wrote: When I
was a teenager, I enjoyed taking my courses as early as possible. That
way I could find a long time in the day to do my own activities.
But Azra from Kyrgyzstan said the reason schools start early there is
a lack of classrooms.
Omid in Afghanistan calls teenagers the destiny makers of a society.
So they must be more alert and active in order to be more successful. And Joruji in Japan wrote: When I was a teenager, I used to get up
before six to go to school, which was far from home, and I don't
remember having problems. I think nowadays the Internet, TV games and
cell phones make teens go to sleep later.
Thirty-year-old Kika in Spain says: In my opinion, young people are
very lazy.
But Dennis Jin disagrees: For high school students in China, we
must reach class at six-twenty in the morning and be back home usually
at ten in the evening. Then we'll have some extra schoolwork to do. Can
you imagine how long could we sleep every day?
Teenagers are not the only ones who suffer. Kathy in Canada wrote:
My daughter likes complaining about everything in the morning, and I
know that this is from lack of sleep. I wish schools should change their
start time to eight-thirty or nine a.m.
Vidara Mom, a Cambodian living in New Zealand, says school starts
at nine and finishes at three p.m. Therefore the students have heaps of
times to interact and play before they go home.
Wibi Sebastian from Indonesia wishes school started at seven-thirty
instead of seven. But one thing, don't forget to eat breakfast!
And Naima Star in Libya wrote: Getting up so early in the morning
and leaving the warm bed is so difficult, especially in the cold weather. It
reminds me of that old song: "It's nice to get up in the morning, but it's nicer to stay in bed."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. You can
comment on all of our programs at , and on Facebook and
Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Jim Tedder.
2. Plan Aims t Cut TB Deaths by Half in Five Years
The consortium of public, private and civil groups announced the
plan Wednesday, saying they hope to prevent 5 million deaths from TB
over the next five years through better testing, improved diagnosis and
more effective drugs.
The Health Commissioner for Johannesburg's Gauteng Province,
Qedani Mahlangu, noted that South Africa is one of several emerging
nations in Africa and Asia with a high incidence of TB. She said this is
partly because TB often attacks people whose immune systems have been
weakened by the HIV/AIDS virus.
"South Africa has a huge TB problem," said Mahlangu. "And
alongside the HIV and AIDS epidemic, it is something we are fully allied
to [fight] and it is something that as government we are doing all we can
to attack, to deal with this problem."
Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease that is transmitted
usually by the cough of an infected person. Experts say it is preventable
and curable, but it often goes undetected and treatment for it is lengthy. The plan hopes to develop new tests that can detect the disease
immediately. These would replace current tests that must be sent to
special laboratories and, in less developed countries, can take weeks to
complete.
The plan also hopes to develop new courses of treatment to replace
current regimes that are less effective against new drug-resistant strains of
TB.
South Africa Coordinator for the Community Initiative for TB Carol
Nawina Nyirenda said victims of TB support the plan because it provides
a blueprint for eliminating the disease.? "For me and many others out
there who live with the reality of TB and TB/HIV, for us this global plan
means hope, a hope that countries will take TB seriously, a hope for a
future free of TB, a hope for our children and children's' children to have
a future free of TB."
Nyirenda added that an important part of the plan is to engage
victims of the disease in the effort because that will help reach the targets
sooner.
The Partnership says $47 billion will be needed during the next five
years to implement the plan.
The head of the Global Business Coalition on HIV, Tuberculosis and
Malaria, John Tedstrom, said TB is a concern to business because it
affects productivity and the families of employees. "Tuberculosis matters
