第 44 至 47題為題組 Grace Wambui, a 14-year-old pupil in Nairobi, had never touched a tablet computer. But it took her
only about one minute to work out how to use one when such devices arrived at Amaf School in
Kawangware, a slum in the Kenyan capital. Teaching used to be conducted with a blackboard and a
handful of tattered textbooks. Now children in groups of five take turns to swipe the touch screen of the
devices, which are loaded with a multimedia version of Kenya’s syllabus.
The tablets at Amaf School are part of a pilot project run by eLimu, a technology start-up. If it and
other firms are right, tablets and other digital devices may soon be the rule in African schools. Many are
betting on a boom in digital education in Kenya and elsewhere. Some executives even expect it to take off
like M-Pesa, Kenya’s hugely successful mobile-money service.
Such growth in digital education would be timely. The flood of new pupils has overwhelmed state
schools, which were already understaffed, underfunded and poorly managed. The prospect of Africa’s
300 million pupils learning digitally has caught the attention of global technology giants. Amazon has
seen sales of its Kindle e-readers in Africa increase tenfold in the past year. Intel has been helping African
governments buy entry-level computers. In Nigeria, Intel brought together a publisher and a telecom
carrier to provide exam-preparation tools over mobile phones, a service that has become hugely popular.
A bigger question is whether digital tools actually improve education. Early results are encouraging.
In Ghana, reading skills improved measurably among 350 children that had been given Kindle e-readers.
In Ethiopia, in the absence of teachers, children figured out how to use tablets and learned the English
ABCs. At Amaf School, average marks in science went from 58 to 73 in a single term.
【題組】44. Which of the following is the best title for this passage?
(A) The Bestseller in Africa
(B) Problems Plaguing Education in Africa
(C) Schools in Africa Are Going Digital
(D) Tablet Computers Are in Great Demand in Kenya