出口中國的英國教育是否會變味

Normally an email from the head of governors at my old school bringing “exciting news” about an ambitious new development is cause for trepidation and accompanied by the inevitable plea for funds. A new theatre here or the irresistible offer of immortality there via my name chiselled on a flagstone.

通常，來自我母校董事會負責人的、帶來有關雄心勃勃新發展的“激動人心消息”的郵件，會讓我感到恐慌，並且必然附有募捐的請求。這裏要建一座新劇院，或者那裏要把我的名字刻在石板上讓我百世流芳——一種讓人無法拒絕的提議。

This one, however, was different. Westminster School in London had signed an agreement to set up six new establishments in China in the next decade, the latest example of a British private school embracing the biggest education market in the world.

然而，這一次情況完全不同。倫敦威斯敏斯特學校(Westminster School)簽署了一項協議，將在未來十年在中國建立6家新機構。這是英國私立學校擁抱全世界最大的教育市場的最新例子。

Under the terms of an ambitious deal, Westminster will export its successful teaching methods to Chengdu and other cities. In return the school will boost its bursary funds, making more money available to help families on lower incomes access an education at one of the UK’s leading — and pricier — academic independent schools, whose former pupils include politicians, writers, rock stars and the odd trapeze artist. The venture sits within an initiative to promote collaboration between future leaders of both countries.

根據一項雄心勃勃的協議，威斯敏斯特學校將把它成功的教育方法出口至成都和其他城市。作爲回報，該學校將增加助學基金，提供更多資金來幫助較低收入家庭的孩子在這所英國領先（並且較爲昂貴的）學術獨立學校接受教育，這裏曾經培養出政客、作家、搖滾明星和高空雜技演員。合資建校的計劃是基於促進兩國未來領導人之間合作的倡議。

This all seems to tick many boxes. These range from a need for a “global Britain” to seize new opportunities, to Westminster acquiring the means to fulfil its obligations as a charity to make its schooling as widely available as possible.

這一切似乎是一舉多得，包括滿足“全球化的英國”掌握新機遇的需求，以及讓威斯敏斯特學校獲得履行其作爲慈善機構儘可能廣泛施教的職責的手段。

The move is also in keeping with a broader trend. For years now British schools have been operating offshoots in China (and elsewhere), selling various brands of top-drawer education directly in to fast-growing markets. Some have done very well, others have struggled, while one or two have faced concerns from parents that global expansion has become a distraction from the core mission back home. If anything, Westminster is a bit late to the China party.

此舉也符合整體趨勢。多年來，英國的學校不斷在中國（及其他地區）運營分支機構，直接向快速增長的市場銷售各種頂級教育品牌。有些學校做的非常出色，有些學校苦苦掙扎，同時還有一兩家學校要應對來自家長的擔憂——全球化擴張分散了學校完成本國核心任務的精力。對於威斯敏斯特學校來說，它加入中國盛宴的時間可能有點晚了。

On one level I am impressed by this outburst of commercial savvy. The entrepreneurial spirit underpinning the China gambit seems a world away from the shabby, bohemian atmosphere that reigned at the school during my years of badly dyed hair, winkle-picker shoes and clandestine smokes in the shadows of Big Ben, amid fraught attempts actually to talk to girls. The facilities were varied — breakfast in a gem of a medieval refectory followed by language lessons in a couple of leaking Portakabins — and the teaching was excellent, if at times unorthodox.

在某種程度上，這種突然迸發出來的商業思維令我印象深刻。支撐學校的中國策略的創業精神，與我上學時學校破破爛爛卻放浪不羈的氣氛相比恍如隔世，那時的我，頂着一頭染得很糟的頭髮，穿着尖頭皮鞋，在大本鐘(Big Ben)的影子下偷偷吸菸，蹩腳地嘗試着和女孩們說話。那時的設施多種多樣——我們在中世紀的歷史瑰寶餐廳內吃早飯，然後在幾間漏水的活動房屋內上語言課——教學非常出色，儘管有時方法是非正統的。

Yet something about this venture jars. In particular, Westminster’s agreement to deliver the compulsory Chinese national curriculum, which includes political education. This is different from the way other UK schools operate in China, where they tend to stick to an international curriculum. It also seems at odds with the tradition and spirit of Westminster itself, which takes an almost perverse delight in a culture of defiant individualism, independence of mind and distrust of authority. It prides itself on having resisted the 19th-century reforms of the English “public” — ie private — system that placed so much emphasis on games and team spirit as a basis on which to raise a ruling class that would govern the world.

不過，威斯敏斯特學校的這次中國冒險，還有一些令人不太滿意的地方。特別是威斯敏斯特學校同意使用中國義務教育全國通用課程——其中包括政治教育。這不同於其他英國學校在中國的運營方式——它們往往堅持使用國際課程。這似乎也與威斯敏斯特學校本身的傳統和精神格格不入，它幾乎固執地堅持反抗性的個人主義、思想獨立以及不信任權威的文化。它引以爲豪的是抵制了19世紀對英國“公共”（實際上是私立）學校體制——強調遊戲和團隊精神，視之爲培養治理世界的統治階層的基礎——的改革。

Or at least that is what they used to tell us. The whole point about Westminster was that it was supposed to be slightly different. If it was a traditional education that offered polish but few surprises you were after, this could easily be had in London’s commuter belt or in one of the gracious, if pallid, cathedral cities.

或者至少這是他們過去告訴我們的。關於威斯敏斯特學校的關鍵在於，它本應該有所不同。如果你追求的是精緻但尋常的傳統教育，那麼倫敦通勤者生活地帶或優雅（但可能毫無生氣）的大教堂所在城市可以輕鬆找到這樣的學校。

There is a broader question closer to home: what are overseas parents actually paying for? As the numbers of foreign students have increased, schools have adapted to their new customers. At what point do they lose the qualities that attracted overseas students in the first place?

還有一個更切入核心的更爲廣泛的問題：海外學生的父母花錢到底是爲了什麼？隨着外國學生人數不斷增加，學校已經面向它們的新客戶做出調整。它們什麼時候會失去最初吸引海外學生的品質？

The truth is that you can never really know how things are going to turn out. For all the Establishment types bred by English private schools there have been a fair number of rebels and scoundrels. The roll-call of old Westminsters includes Kim Philby — a consummate child of the British ruling class and arch traitor to it. The one-time Kings Scholar and later KGB colonel reportedly kept up with news from school long after he had taken up residence in Moscow, having inflicted massive damage on the system he was raised to serve. One can’t help wondering what China’s ruling cadres might think about that.

事實上，你永遠都無法知曉事情會如何發展。儘管英國私立學校培養出了衆多建制派人物，但也培養了相當數量的叛徒和無賴。老威斯敏斯特學校培養出的畢業生包括金?菲爾比(Kim Philby)——出身於英國統治階層的天之驕子，卻成爲英國統治階層的主要叛徒。據稱，曾經獲封國王學者(King's Scholar)、後來成爲克格勃(KGB)上校的菲爾比在定居莫斯科很長時間後，仍然關注母校的消息，而他已對他原本應該服務的系統造成巨大傷害。人們不禁想知道中國的統治階層對此有何感想。