How much paper and glue can $27.5bn buy?
275亿美元可以买多少纸和胶水？
In the US, the average family now spends about $685 on their child’s back-to-school necessities from kindergarten to secondary school, an increase of nearly $250 since 2005 – and that works out to $27.5 billion total for the 2018 schoolyear.
在今天的美国，普通家庭从孩子上幼儿园到中学阶段购买返校用品平均花费685美元（4679元人民币），自2005年以来上涨了近250美元。2018学年全美总计在学生用品上花费275亿美元。
Combined with university spending, the number climbs to $83bn. The most expensive items are computers at an average spend of $299 per household. Clothing is close behind at $286, followed by electronics like tablets and calculators at $271. Last are the basics: binders, folders, books, highlighters and the rest, which cost $112. (Source: Statista / Deloitte)
如果再加上大学阶段的学生用品花费，花费高达830亿美元。最贵的支出是电脑，平均每家花费299美元。仅次于电脑的是衣服，花费286美元，其后是平板电脑和计算器等电子产品，花费271美元。最后则是一些基本学习用品：活页夹、文件夹、书、荧光笔等花费112美元。（数据来源：Statista /德勤）
Danes spend 200 hours a year more in school than the average student.
丹麦学生每年在校时间比其他国家的学生多出200小时。
Of 33 developed nations, primary students in Russia have the fewest required instructional hours per year – just over 500 (the international average is 800 hours). This translates to about five hours a day, with breaks between each class, during an eight-month-long schoolyear. But that doesn’t seem to be holding the country back too much: Russia’s universal literacy rate is almost 100%.
在33个发达国家中，俄罗斯小学生每年的课时量是最低的，刚刚超过500个小时（国际平均课时量是800个小时）。这相当于在八个月长的学年里，每天只上约5个小时的课，中间还包括课间休息时间。但这并没有让俄罗斯在教育上落后太多：俄罗斯民众的识字率将近100%。
Then there is Denmark. The country requires primary school students to spend about 1,000 hours a year in class. That’s nearly two more months than Russia, and Denmark has longer schooldays. As a country consistently ranked in the top five for education, however, perhaps Denmark proves there are some benefits to having such a long school year. (Source: OECD)
再来看看丹麦。丹麦要求小学生每年的课时量要达到1000个小时，比俄罗斯多出近2个月，而且丹麦每天上课时间也更长。丹麦的教育水平一直稳居世界五强，也许证明了课时长还是有好处的。（数据来源：经济合作与发展组织）
Parents aren’t the only ones who pay the price for school. Just think of the trees.
为孩子上学付出代价的不只有父母，还有树木。
Even in the age of virtual reality, 3D printing and drones, the simple pencil continues to make a mark in institutions across the world. Today, more than 400 years after their invention, an estimated 15 to 20 billion pencils are produced each year.
即使是在虚拟现实、3D打印和无人机时代，简单的铅笔依然继续在世界各地的学校中存在。在铅笔被发明了400多年后的今天，每年约有150亿到200亿根铅笔被生产出来。
Cedar trees found in the Pacific Northwest are the most common source of pencil wood in the US, while most of the graphite is mined in China and Sri Lanka. Approximately 60,000 to 80,000 trees are cut each year to maintain the world's pencil supply. (Source: The Economist)
太平洋西北地区的雪松是美国铅笔用木的最大来源地，而多数铅笔所用的石墨采自中国和斯里兰卡。为了给全球供应铅笔，每年要砍掉6万到8万棵树。（数据来源：《经济学人》杂志）
Students in Australia attend class for a quarter of their lifetime.
澳大利亚人一生的四分之一时间都在上学。
At some point, school is meant to end. But in countries like New Zealand and Iceland, that isn’t for almost two decades. A student’s ‘school life expectancy’ is calculated by the average enrolment rates for different ages from primary school to the undergraduate university level. Australia currently holds the longest expectancy at 22.9 years from primary school to university, or from six years old to about 28. At the bottom of the list is Niger, where students generally begin primary school at the age of seven. Here, the average time a student spends in school is as few as 5.3 years – a 17-year difference. (Source: Global Innovation Index)
每个人总有离开学校的那一天。但是在新西兰和冰岛等国家，人们要在学校里待上近二十年。一个国家学生的“学校生涯”是按照不同年龄人群在小学到大学的平均入学率来计算的。澳大利亚人的学校生涯是现今世界上最长的，从小学到大学长达22.9年，也就是从6岁到28岁都在上学。学校生涯最短的国家是尼日尔，那里的学生普遍7岁开始上小学。尼日尔人平均在校时间只有5.3年，和澳大利亚人相差了17年。（数据来源：全球创新指数）
本文来源：中国日报网
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