POPULAR EDUCATION IN TIMOR-LESTE: PAST AND PRESENT EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER 4
LEARNING FROM OUR PAST TO CRAFT GOOD EDUCATIONAL POLICY TODAY Pamela Sexton Adilsonio da Costa Jr Education is often presented as the fundamental hope of the nation. It is the pathway to success, the way to change our lives for the better. La’o Hamutuk believes that education is indeed critical to ensuring a strong future for our nation, finding solutions to the problems we face, and building unity and security. La’o Hamutuk has long advocated for increased funding to the national education sector; spending on education has long been low compared to other counties, and has steadily declined since 2014. We also realize that it takes more than money to make education strong and effective. Its success also depends on what is taught, how it is taught, good management and accountability, and agreement about the ultimate purposes of education. Public discussions often compare past systems to the present, offering potential models to follow, at least in part. In general, these comparisons focus on the Portuguese or Indonesian systems, which we’ll explore below. First, let’s examine more closely the literacy and education campaigns of FRETILIN in 1974 and 1975.
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