Competing visions of education in Timor-Leste's Curriculum Reform
Keywords:
Timor-Leste, curriculum reform, localization, visions of educationAbstract
Timor-Leste’s independence in 2002 marked the end of centuries of foreign control. Early post-independence education reforms successfully increased school enrolments and rebuilt education infrastructure, however, teacher qualifications and student outcomes have remained poor. The current Curriculum Reform, initiated in 2013, aims to improve educational quality in the first six years of schooling by adapting international best practices to the Timorese context, fundamentally reshaping the curriculum’s approach to language, content and pedagogy. Located at the intersection of current debates in the anthropologies of education and international development, this paper examines how diverse educational actors in Timor-Leste translate Curriculum Reform policy into practice. The research draws on two months of ethnographic fieldwork in the capital, Dili, and on the author’s professional experience as editor of the Curriculum Reform. The key finding is that, while all actors share a common goal of creating a quality education system that contributes to Timor-Leste’s development, school and reform staff translate policy into practice in inconsistent ways. The paper argues that these inconsistencies are the result of the actors’ divergent visions of education, their working conditions, and their unequal access to information about the reform. These factors are compared across the reform pillars of language, curriculum content, and pedagogy for those who create policy (reform staff) and those who are tasked with implementing it (school staff).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives is the official journal of the Oceania Comparative and International Education Society. The IEJ, (ISSN 1443-1475), publishes a general volume bi-annually in July and December and also publishes Special Editions occasionally. It is a free, open-access scholarly journal, managed by volunteers. There are no article processing charges, or any charges to authors.
In relation to intellectual property, as of 2020, the IEJ: CP claims only first publication rights; copyright of all work published in the journal remains with the authors under Creative Commons copyright license CC-BY-ND (4.0). Author(s) retain all rights to their works, ensuring that reference to the International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives is clearly stated on any copies made or distribution. Submissions must not involve third parties with a claim to copyright, and be the sole work of the author(s). It is the responsibility of the author(s) to secure permission to reproduce photographs, illustrations, figures or tables. Single images, tables or figures can be re-used . If more than a single image or table are to be re-used authors must attribute first publication to IEJ: CP notify the IEJ: CP Editor. Authors may also make derivative works which are subject to these limitations.
See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ for more detail.
Re-distributed or used material must be referenced to the International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives.