Timor-Leste

AME EDUCATION

SECTOR PROFILE

Education Structure

Timor-Leste

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Bank EdStats

Education System Structure and Enrollments 2006

Education Structure

Source: UNESCO UIS, World Bank EdStats

Timor-Leste

• Almost 30% of children enrolled in primary education are over-age for their grade of attendance.

 

% Net Enrollments

% Gross Enrollments

Classification Level/Grade Ages 2006 2005

Pre-primary Pre-school 4-5 N/A 10%

Pre-university

Primary, grades 1-6 6-11 63% 91%*

Lower Secondary, grades 7-9 12-14

35.0% 68%

Upper Secondary, grades 10-12 15-17

23.0% 37%

TVET Secondary, grades 10-12 15-17

N/A 4%

Tertiary Post secondary study 18-22 N/A 10%**

* Primary gross enrollment data from 2007. * *Tertiary data from 2002..

Pre-school education is not compulsory, but is available for children four to five years of age. At present there are 57 preschools enrolling 4,700 children with 139 teachers. Only eight of the schools are public and most are in urban areas. With less than 10 percent of children aged 4-5 year attending pre-school at this stage, there is considerable scope for expansion as demand increases.

The primary education system. Children at age six or seven can enroll in six years of primary education. After the strong growth in enrolments in 2000 and 2001, the numbers in primary school have now stabilized at about 185,000, with large numbers of overage children in the system. The average school size is about 248 students with an average of six teachers per school. Within these overall totals, there are districts with higher and lower growth than the national average, resulting from very significant population movement highlighted by the 2004 census and from poor rural areas where there was low enrollment pre independence. Some districts, such as Dili, have larger school sizes, which give greater flexibility and the opportunity for single teacher classes and some specialization. Teacher numbers have grown strongly, but are also now stabilizing. The primary teacher population of more than 4,000 is the single largest category in the government workforce. Students returned to school in great numbers before all teachers could be recruited, which explains the lag and consequent mismatch in student and teacher growth rates. The average pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) is 44:1, having declined from 47:1 in 2001. The average is slightly lower in Catholic schools.

Junior secondary schools.Post-primary education in Timor-Leste is divided into three years of pre-secondary education and three years of secondary. The policy of the Government is to move towards a system of nine years of basic education for all children. One “Escola Basica” has already been established by the Government to provide both primary and junior secondary education. Additional schools will gradually be added or converted to provide these nine years of

basic education.

Senior secondary schools.There are far fewer senior secondary schools - 55 in 2003, 17 of which were Catholic. Nearly half of all the schools and students are found in Dili. The TLSS confirmed the association between poverty and length of education, and Dili appears to have a substantial proportion of the households who desire and can afford senior secondary ducation for their children. The average senior secondary school is larger than the average junior secondary school, with about 380 students and 20 teachers per school.

Population Structure

Timor-Leste

Source: T-L Living Standard Survey 2001, CIA Factbook, UNESCO 2008

• 74% of the population of Timor-Leste is under 25 years old. • With country fertility rate of 3% yearly, the youthful proportion of the population will continue to pressure the education system for another decade or more.

Relevant Policies:

1. National Development Plan 2002

2. Strategic Plan for Universal Primary Completion by 2015, 2005

3. Education and Training: Priorities and Proposed Sector Investment

Program 2005

4. EFA Fast Track Initiative Award, $8.2 million, 2006-2008

www.educationfasttrack.org

Policies are available at:

http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/format_liste1_en.php?Chp2=Tajikistan

Education Policy

Timor-Leste

Education Access: Pre-university

• All levels of education are increasing enrollments. •Secondary level is increasing at a faster rate, 18.7%, than primary level at 11.3%.

Source: UNESCO UIS, World Bank EdStats

Timor-Leste

Education Access: Tertiary

Timor-Leste

•Tertiary enrollment information for Timor-Leste is very limited.

• The single public university, the National University of East Timor, re-opened in 2000 and continues to receive heavy donor support.

•There are five faculties at the university: agriculture, political science, economics, education and teacher training, and engineering. All new students follow a course including human rights, ethics, philosophy of science, and Timorese history.

•A single data entry for tertiary education is available: 6,349 individuals were enrolled at the public university in 2002.

•18 private institutions offer tertiary education of varying degrees of quality due to a lack of regulatory mechanisms in place.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Google.com

Education Access: Gender

•Girls’ and boys’ enrollments appear to be dropping at nearly an equal rate. • Gender parity at this level is .96.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. World Bank EdStats

Timor-Leste

Education Access: Gender

• Females and males have made similar enrollment gains at lower secondary since 2000 (16.7% and 17.3% respectively). •Females at upper secondary do not enroll in large numbers.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Timor-Leste

Education Quality: Teachers

Timor-Leste

Source: T-L Primary School Achievement Study 2003, UNESCO (2008)

• The majority of teachers (66%) have upper secondary or post-secondary technical-vocational education.• The majority of teacher training is offered by small private universities and NGOs and is of sometimes dubious quality.

Education Quality: Completion

• Primary completion information is reported for one year: 2007.

• Less than 50% of primary children complete grade 6.• Girls and boys complete primary education in equal

numbers.

Timor-Leste

Source: World Bank EdStats

Total 69.3%Male 69.4%Female 69.2%

Education Quality: Testing

Source: World Bank (2004) Education Since Independence

Timor-Leste

• Timor-Leste has not participated in TIMSS.

• In 2003, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports conducted a Primary School Achievement Survey for math with 3rd and 4th graders. • Third graders answered 28% and 4th graders answered 37% of questions correctly suggesting that children are not learning grade-appropriate knowledge in math.

Education Equity: Gender/ Geographic Disparities

Timor-Leste

• Almost 85% of out-of-school children are from rural areas which also contain the largest proportion of children in the country.

Dili/Baucau

Other Urban

RuralCenter

RuralEast

RuralWest

% of school age population 12.5 9.9 39.8 18.8 18.9% of out-of-school children 8.0 7.4 45.9 20.6 18.1

Source: T-L Living Standard Survey 2001

Education Equity: Income Disparities

Source: T-L Living Standard Survey 2001

Timor-Leste

• The largest proportion of out-of-school children are the poorest and youngest. • 32% of the poorest and 26% of the richest out-of-school children, aged 7-12, say they have ‘no interest’ to be in school.

Education Equity: Academic Disparities

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Timor-Leste

• Timor-Leste does not focus extensively on technical and vocational training programs at the secondary level.

  2004 2005

General academic programs 95.5% 96.3%

Technical/vocational programs 4.5% 3.7%

Total Students 73005 74822

Education Efficiency: Expenditure

Source: World Bank Education at a Glance

Timor-Leste

• Timor-Leste is the biggest spender in the region on education as a percentage of GDP and public money.

Education Efficiency: Expenditure

• The education budget in Timor-Leste is almost equally divided among levels.

Source: World Bank EdStats

Timor-Leste

Education Efficiency: Repetition

Source: World Bank 2008

Timor-Leste

• Repetition is a serious problem despite the high rates of funding the country allocates to education.

Education Efficiency: Repetition

Source: World Bank 2008

Timor-Leste

• Between 20-25% of primary students repeat grades.

Education Efficiency: Private Tutoring

• No information about private tutoring is available.

• Volunteer teachers in the system however, remain an issue at all levels. Volunteers are paid by parents and school-raised funds and are often of poor academic quality.

• One in three teachers at the senior secondary level is a volunteer as the government has difficulty recruiting qualified candidates for secondary education posts.

Source: World Bank (2004)

Timor-Leste

Challenges Facing Timor-Leste’s Education System

• With one out of every two adults unable to read and nearly two-thirds of children suffering from stunting, the early and most crucial years of a child’s development in Timor-Leste are not suited towards preparing a child to learn and thrive in society. Only one out of 10 children have the chance to go to preschool; the first time most children step into a classroom is at the age of six or seven. Upon entering school, chances are the language of instruction is different from the language they speak at home, further complicating the learning process.

Challenges Facing Timor-Leste’s Education System

• For those who stay in school, the outcomes are not promising. Teachers are not adequately trained and face challenging circumstances ranging from poor facilities and materials to overcrowded classes. More than 70 percent of children cannot read a single word in Portuguese or Tetum at the end of first grade; 40 percent cannot read a single word after two full years of school. Repetition rates are high in the first three grades of school, comprising more than half of the children enrolled. And only 37 percent of children will continue on to secondary school.

Education: Conclusion

Successes:• Access: Increasing enrollments at all pre-university levels.

• Quality:

• Equity: Gender parity at primary.

• Efficiency: High level of education funding and well-divided between levels.

Challenges:

• Access: Declining primary enrollments and low completion rates. Low tertiary capacity. • Quality: Poor teacher academic qualifications. High rates of repetition and drop-out all levels. • Equity: Low primary access rate for low income and rural groups. Low female access rate at upper secondary.

• Efficiency: A system of ‘volunteer ‘ teachers all levels especially upper secondary.

Timor-Leste