Educational development in East Timor

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Abstract

This paper examines educational development in East Timor. It is particularly concerned with the period between October 1999 and May 2002 when the country was governed by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The paper argues that UNTAET missed an important opportunity to implement the transformation in education that was called for by Timorese leaders. This was in part due to the extensive damage to East Timor’s education system as a result of Indonesia’s violent withdrawal in 1999. It was also due to the UNTAET period being the latest phase of a long history of external actors seeking to govern East Timor. As another (albeit far more benign) external actor, UNTAET’s efforts in the educational sector lacked legitimacy and thus popular acceptance from the people of East Timor.

Introduction

East Timor is currently the world’s newest country. On May 20 2002 it became, for the first time, a sovereign nation. This followed 450 years of Portuguese colonial administration, 24 years of illegal occupation by Indonesia, and 32 months of interim international administration by the United Nations Transitional Administration of East Timor (UNTAET). This paper focuses on educational development under UNTAET.

Transformation of the educational legacy of the Portuguese and Indonesian occupation periods is a critical component of building an independent and economically, culturally and politically sustainable future for East Timor. Such an educational transformation was a stated goal of the Timorese Conçelho Naçional da Resistençia Timorense (CNRT). Yet this task is by no means easy. East Timor is one of the world’s least developed countries. In terms of the UNDP’s Human Development Index (0.395 for East Timor in 1999) it is the poorest of the ASEAN countries, and was ranked 152 out of 162 countries worldwide in 1999 (UNDP, 2002). In 2001 GDP per capita was estimated to be US$ 478, infant mortality was 80 deaths per 1000 live births, 420 women died for every 10,000 live births, and 45% of children under 5 years old were underweight (UNDP, 2002). East Timor is an agrarian society. Agriculture accounts for 85% of employment, 40% of GDP, and 90% of foreign exchange, the bulk of which comes from coffee exports (East Timor Planning Commission, 2002). Some 75% of the population live in rural areas and the majority of people are engaged in subsistence production (UNDP, 2002). The workforce has a low skills base, making the transition to genuine independence difficult (East Timor Planning Commission, 2002).

Consistent with its overall level of development, education standards in East Timor are very low. According to the UNDP (2002), 43% of the population is literate, with a large gap between rural areas (37% literate) and urban areas (82% literate). In 2001/2 73% of children aged 7-2 were enrolled in primary school, 25% of teenagers aged 13–15 were enrolled in Junior Secondary School, and 17% of teenagers aged 16–18 were enrolled in Senior High School (East Timor Planning Commission, 2002). There is now little difference between boys and girls in enrolment and attainment in primary and secondary schools, but in adults over 30 there are more than twice as many illiterate women than men (East Timor Planning Commission, 2002: p. 61). East Timor’s tertiary education sector is very small, with only 3.9% of adults enrolled (UNDP, 2002: p. 79).

This low level of development is a result of Portuguese and Indonesian colonial rule. It was intensified by a period of violent retribution perpetrated by the Indonesian military and militia groups after a UN sponsored referendum on August 30 1999, the result of which saw the people of East Timor overwhelmingly reject an offer of autonomy, instead favoring independence from Indonesia. During the following weeks over 200,000 people, or one quarter of the total population, were forcibly deported into the Indonesian territory of West Timor (UNDP, 2002). The violence is estimated to have caused GDP to decline by 25–30% in 1999 (Hill, 2001). A large part of the educational infrastructure was damaged, buildings were burned, furniture was looted, and a significant number of teaching and administrative staff who were Indonesians fled back to Indonesia. The World Bank estimates that 95% of schools were destroyed, and furniture and school materials were stolen or burned (World Bank, 1999). Perhaps the most significant loss was the 70–80% of (Indonesian) senior administrative staff and secondary school teachers who left. However, the 80% of primary education administrative and teaching staff who were Timorese remained in the country (World Bank, 1999). So, colonization affected very low levels of development in East Timor, and this was considerably exacerbated by the post-ballot violence. These factors considerably constrain the pace and scope of educational development in independent East Timor.

We argue in this paper that in addition to these significant broader structural and educational sector-specific difficulties, an important constraint to educational development in East Timor after the withdrawal of the Indonesian occupiers has been the political and cultural status of UNTAET. UNTAET’s efforts at reconstructing the education sector were for the most part successful despite considerable obstacles. However, we argue that there was an important opportunity to implement a more profound transformation of education that was called for by civil society and the CNRT. The reasons for this lack of success and the difficulties UNTAET faced in educational development are the principal concern of this paper: we stress that they were less due to failures of agency and more due to legitimacy of UNTAET as an externally imposed governing body. While UNTAET may have been necessary, and can for the most part be satisfied with its achievements, its very nature—as another external actor controlling the lives of the Timorese—considerably constrained its efficacy.

This paper draws on relevant academic literature and donor agency, UN and NGO reports. However, its principal source of information is the experience and observations of one author who served as a Social Services Officer for UNTAET in Oecussi district between March 2000 and September 2001 (Millo, 2002). These have been supplemented by extensive consultations, discussions and unstructured interviews with key actors during July and August 2002.

Section snippets

Educational transformation

There is a considerable body of literature on political transition and its implications for education systems (Bray and Lee, 1997, Santisteban, 2002). Transition from colonial rule to independence, after violent conflict, or from changes in systems of governance, result in new leadership regimes with new development plans and new conceptions of national identity. Because of its integral role in development, such as in generating new concepts of the nation, and in institutionalizing change,

Colonization and educational development in East Timor

To understand educational development in East Timor after the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, it is important to understand the nature of successive waves of colonization of East Timor, its struggle for decolonization, and its educational development during these colonial periods.

East Timor in transition: 1999–2002

In the period between the arrival of INTERFET in late September and the deployment of UNTAET in November 1999 there was something of a vacuum in the governance of East Timor, which was nominally under the authority of UNAMET. The violence following the consultation saw UNAMET partially withdraw from East Timor. In this time between INTERFET and UNTAET, the CNRT—a body comprised of the various groups that struggled for Timorese independence including FRETILIN—began to reconstitute itself through

Educational development under UNTAET

During the period in which UNTAET governed the initial priority for education was reconstruction of infrastructure and the resumption of services. This was appropriate given UNTAET’s mandate. There was also an important opportunity, however, to establish the foundations of a radically different, transformed education sector. Such a transformation was called for by the CNRT (discussed below). While attempts at educational reconstruction were for the most part successful, there was little effort

Conclusions

Attempts to begin to transform East Timor’s education system in the period under discussion were unsuccessful because of broader problems with UNTAET. Educational transformation goes hand in hand with political transformation, and so a primary condition for educational reform is the existence of a legitimate national consensus on the objectives of nation building and development. As long as there was no legitimate, democratically elected government in East Timor there was no opportunity to

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the people of Oecussi, the Oecussi District Education Committee, and in particular Mr. Venancio Lafo. Thanks also to Heidi Ellemor, Anthony Marcus, Michael Webber and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on drafts of this paper. All responsibility for errors and opinions rest with the authors.

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