Snapshots of Timor Leste

2010 April Snapshots of Timor Leste
Click to download full article.

Jan Gillies

Jan uses four frames – Structural, Human Resources, Political and Symbolic – to reflect on her impressions of Timor-Leste.

Evidence of the educational challenges facing Timor-Leste after the Indonesian withdrawal was everywhere. The Ministry for Education virtually started with a blank page. It had imported some Portuguese curriculum frameworks and policy development was in the embryonic stage. Representatives explained that there was ‘effectively no secondary curriculum’ and no middle management in schools.

The number of mushrooming ‘bottom up’ projects that proactively addressed urgent needs was also very obvious. There were teacher training groups, people producing learning resources, others teaching the English language. Innovative, grass-roots initiatives were everywhere. Another challenge was going to be how to pull it all tougher.