Overview Timor-Leste has made significant progress since independence, but economic and employment growth remain key concerns in its development. After a strong recovery from the 1999 destruction, economic activity slowed down substantially after mid-2002. Real GDP is estimated to have declined by 3 percent in 2003. Inflation was high at 10 percent, immediately after independence, but appears to have stabilized at 4 percent during 2003 and 2004. The country however, continues to be among the least developed in East Asia on most social indicators, with one in five people living below US$1 a day. Education in Timor-Leste Education in Timor-Leste has evolved through three distinct periods: Portueguese colonial rule (1511-1975), Indonesian occupation (1975-September 1999) and the United Nations Transitional Administration leading to the election for a constituent assembly to prepare for independence. Mass education was not the policy of the colonial administration and when Portuguese rule ended, the illiteracy rate was about 90 percent. Indonesia vastly expanded public primary education. However, by 1999, Timor-Leste was not only behind the Indonesian enrollment average, but also was far from meeting its own national requirement of 9 years of compulsory basic education for children between the ages of 7 and 15.  The low educational attainment was in part due to the low level of public expenditure on education during the Indonesian administration. This resulted in poor quality and high repetition and low retention rates. Even though public primary education was free, households had to pay for books, school supplies, uniforms, transport and lunches and secondary schools charged annual and monthly fees.
Post-referendum destruction and current instabiltiy have made reconstruction of the education system the primary issue over the short term, involving the rehabilitation of buildings and textbooks and the recruitment and reorganization of human resources (teachers and administrators). Other issues include language of instruction (Portuguese) and an obsolete and overcrowded curriculum. Back to top World Bank Program Projects  The Fundamental School Quality Project (closed) was a follow-up to the Emergency School Readiness Project that focused on rehabilitation of school facilities and supplies. The Fundamental School Quality Project focused on basic education, with specific attention to junior secondary education. It rehabilitated physical facilities and provided textbooks and other instructional materials. Timor-Leste was also accepted into the Fast Track Initiative in 2006 and is currently receiving support from the FTI Catalytic Fund to expand access to basic education by rehabiltating and upgrading school facilities and providing quality improvements through investments in textbooks and other resource materials.
Back to top Analytical and Advisory Services A study, Timor-Leste Education Since Independence: From Reconstruction to Sustainable Improvement, provides support for medium-term policy options to expand coverage, raise efficiency and student achievement of basic education, and improve expenditure management in education. At the most fundamental level, the government's target is to reach the Millennium Development Goals of gender parity in enrollment by 2005 and universal enrollment in and completion of primary education by 2015.
Back to top June 2007 |
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