Reflections from the Field: Timor-Leste

[caption id="attachment_10225" align="alignleft" width="330" caption="Three students at a school in Suai in Timor-Leste struggle to share the only chair in their classroom. (AP Photo/Simon Thong)"][/caption]

As I gaze out the window, the flight into Dili, Timor-Leste is idyllic; The sky is bright and mountains frame this capital city. Once on the ground, things are more complicated. Youth roam the streets and United Nations vehicles dominate the city.

Timor-Leste, once known as East Timor, is only 10 years old. The country was established in 2002 after three years of an interim, UN-sponsored transitional administration. Today the young nation presents a complex picture of development post-conflict, an effort that includes rebuilding an education system that saw 95 percent of its schools torched and a mass exodus of teachers in 1999.

But perhaps more pressing than hiring teachers and building new schools are issues related to the language of instruction.

It is surprising to learn that Portuguese is one of Timor-Leste's official languages, but a look back at history makes it easier to understand. While several countries have occupied the small island nation, the Portuguese arrived in the 1500s, and East Timor remained under Portuguese colonial rule until 1975 when the Indonesians invaded. Fast-forward through this brutal occupation to Timor's independence 25 years later, and when drafting the constitution, the new government chose Portuguese and Tetun, a Portuguese creole lingua franca, as the two official languages. (Legally, Indonesian and English are "working" languages.)

Issues of language are complex in Timor-Leste, but judgment aside, the decision to make Portuguese an official language — and the language of instruction — was made despite the fact that the majority of teachers in Timor-Leste do not speak Portuguese. Portuguese, Tetun, and the other 15 indigenous languages were banned during the Indonesian occupation. As a result, those who came of age during the period, many of whom now make up the country's teaching force, were schooled in Bahasa Indonesia. Now, a large part of the current teaching force is learning Portuguese alongside the students they are teaching.

To mitigate some of these challenges, adopting mother tongue instruction is one of the topics of interest in Timor-Leste today. Yet this too is a complicated matter. Research supports the idea that children learn best if initially taught in their mother tongue.

Recognizing this, Timor-Leste recently made the well-advised decision to pilot mother tongue instruction in its education system. This means that some children will start school learning in their indigenous languages. Introduction to Tetun will happen in the second grade, Portuguese in grade five.

But even this pilot has been met with much debate. Some in Timor-Leste worry, as one news story reported, that "mother-tongue instruction could jeopardize national unity." Sadly, some even believe that mother tongue instruction is part of an effort to hold their children back. — Lisa Kaufman, Ed.M.'07, works for the World Bank.

Read related feature article: Conflicts of Interest