Timor-Leste: Transforming Education Through

Partnership in a Small Post-Conflict State

COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION:
A Diversity of Voices

Volume 35

Series Editors

Allan Pitman
University of Western Ontario, Canada
Miguel A. Pereyra
University of Granada, Spain

Editorial Board

Ali Abdi, University of Alberta, Canada

Clementina Acedo, UNESCO International Bureau of Education
Mark Bray, University of Hong Kong, China
Christina Fox, University of Wollongong, Australia
Steven Klees, University of Maryland, USA
Nagwa Megahed, Ain Shams University, Egypt
Crain Soudain, University of Cape Town, South Africa
David Turner, University of Glamorgan, England
Medardo Tapia Uribe, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico

Scope

Comparative and International Education: A Diversity of Voices aims to provide

a comprehensive range of titles, making available to readers work from across the
comparative and international education research community. Authors will represent
as broad a range of voices as possible, from geographic, cultural and ideological
standpoints. The editors are making a conscious effort to disseminate the work
of newer scholars as well as that of well-established writers.The series includes
authored books and edited works focusing upon current issues and controversies in a
field that is undergoing changes as profound as the geopolitical and economic forces
that are reshaping our worlds.The series aims to provide books which present new
work, in which the range of methodologies associated with comparative education and
international education are both exemplified and opened up for debate. As the series
develops, it is intended that new writers from settings and locations not frequently
part of the English language discourse will find a place in the list.
Timor-Leste: Transforming Education Through
Partnership in a Small Post-Conflict State

Jude Butcher
Australian Catholic University, Australia
Peter Bastian
Australian Catholic University, Australia
Margie Beck
Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores, Timor-Leste
Tony d’Arbon
Australian Catholic University, Australia
Youssef Taouk
Australian Catholic University, Australia
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6209-882-4 (paperback)

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Published by: Sense Publishers,

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No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Most Rev Basilio do Nascimento, Brother Jeffrey Crowe
and Professor Greg Craven vii
Preface by the Series Editors
Allan Pitman and Miguel Pereyra ix
Acknowledgements xi
Glossary xiii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

PART I: Understanding the Challenge

Chapter 2: Timor-Leste: An Historical Overview 9
A Portuguese Colony 9
Indonesian Control 13
The Collapse of Indonesian Control 15
A New Nation Emerges 17
Problems for the Nation 20
Chapter 3: Timor-Leste: An Educational Overview 23
Education during Portuguese Colonisation 23
Education under Indonesian Rule 24
The Catholic Church and Education 26
The Referendum and its Aftermath 28
Reconstruction: Development of a New Education System 29
The Catholic Church 32
Primary Education 33
Secondary Education 34
Tertiary Education 35
The Language Conundrum 35
Conclusion 37

PART II: Committing to the Partnership

Chapter 4: History of the Partnership 41
Origins of the Partnership 41
The Establishment of Catholic Teachers College and ICFP 44
Partnership with Australian Catholic University 46
Course Development 50
Conclusion 52

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 5: Scope of the Partnership 63

ICFP 63
Broadening the Scope of the Partnership 70
Conclusion 71

PART III: Transforming Education

Chapter 6: Domains and Responsibilities in the Partnership 75
Foundational Values 76
Institutional Deliverables 79
Institutional Infrastructure 82
Institutional Sustainability 86
Conclusion 88
Chapter 7: Evaluating the Partnership 91
ICFP as a Quality Tertiary Institution 91
Principles of International Development 95
Catholic Social Teaching 98
Post-conflict Small State 99
Conclusion 100
Chapter 8: Conclusion 101
Sharing a Common Vision 102
Respect for Partners 103
A Long Term and Evolving Commitment 103
Working within Capacity 105
Ensuring Ongoing Credibility and Quality 105
Recognising Broader Development Goals 106
Ensuring Local Participation, Responsibility and Support 106

Appendix 1: Marist Brothers who have served in ICFP 109

Appendix 2: Staff Employed at ICFP (at time of publication) 111

References 113
About the Authors 119

vi
 FOREWORD

Education has been recognised as an important factor in helping to overcome

disadvantages among the people of developing nations. In the case of Timor-Leste,
the after effects of its struggle for independence and the small size of the State left
it with grave problems in providing educational capacity building in the years after
1999. In response, a partnership was developed between the Diocese of Baucau, the
Marist Brothers in Australia, Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Instituto
Católico para a Formação de Professores (ICFP) at Baucau. It initially aimed
at providing in-service support for current teachers and then a bachelor’s degree
programme to train primary teachers while also developing the Institute to a point
where it would be Timorese-operated.
At first, the goals of the partnership were modest and specific but over time this
has broadened into an ongoing and multi-varied form of co-operation. Inspired
by Catholic social teaching and an awareness of development aid principles, the
partnership has been able to draw upon a wider group of supporters both within
Timor-Leste and from Australia and Europe in order to give the project a greater
scope. Over time, ICFP has created widely recognised courses and qualifications
for its students. Staff and students have also come to enjoy a high standing in the
community and good employment prospects. The Institution is continuing to develop
its profile in teaching, research, scholarship and community engagement.
The purpose of this book is to examine the co-operative partnership in the
development of capacity building in education in Timor-Leste between 1999 and
2012. The study highlights the transformative power of such value based co-
operative partnerships.

Most Rev Basilio do Nascimento

Bishop Diocese of Baucau
Timor-Leste

Br Jeffrey Crowe fms

Provincial
Marist Brothers Province of Australia

Professor Greg Craven

Vice-Chancellor
Australian Catholic University

vii
 PREFACE BY THE SERIES EDITORS .

The nature of international collaboration requires a level of mutuality between the

collaborating parties in order to attain a successful outcome. This is particularly the
case in those situations in which a project involves institutions with widely differ-
ent resource bases, both in a qualitative as well as quantitative sense.
If the project reported upon in this book is taken as a case, then there are
valuable lessons to be learned. The collaboration is between various organisations
with corresponding ideological/religious understandings and within that there
is a commonality of mission. The religious underpinning of the project is in line
historically of the role of the Catholic Church in Timor-Leste from Portuguese
colonial times to the present. There is a clear agreement that the project is to move
to full local operation: this is an essential ingredient in both attaining sustainability
and in fulfilling the local group’s mission and aspiration.
The collaboration is based on the partners deriving outcomes that are not identical
but recognise the differences in what constitutes institutional success on the broader
scale: in the case of ICFP and the Marist Brothers a viable and respected programme;
for the Australian university a successful production of research results as well as
addressing the religious promulgation role (as evidenced by the support indicated in
the letter from the Bishop).
The reader should study this book in the context of the successes and failures of
a multitude of international “development projects” which have been supported by
organisations as diverse as the World Bank, government-backed organisations such
as USAid, CIDA and SIDA, and NGO’s of all types.

Allan Pitman
Miguel Pereyra
Series Editors

ix
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The development and capacity building endeavour of transforming education through

the Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores (ICFP) and its partnership
with the Bishop of Baucau, the Marist Brothers, and Australian Catholic University
is testimony not only to the work of this group but to the determination of the people
of Timor-Leste to build a new society. The warmth and openness of the welcome
offered by the Timorese staff and students of ICFP have been much appreciated by
the authors of this book.
The authors would also like to acknowledge the vision and courage of Bishop
Basilio do Nascimento, Bishop of the Diocese of Baucau, and Brother Jim Jolley,
Province Leader of the Melbourne Province of the Marist Brothers in Australia in
1999 and subsequent Province Leaders. Bishop Basilio and Brother Jim recognised
the power of a faith-based educational capacity building partnership for establishing,
developing and sustaining ICFP as a quality higher education provider within
Timor-Leste. The Marist Brothers in their newly formed Marist Brothers’ Province
of Australia with Brother Jeffrey Crowe as Province Leader have maintained and
extended their commitment to the partnership and to the people of Timor-Leste.
It should also be acknowledged that ACU’s community engagement commitment
to capacity building in Timor-Leste was initiated through the leadership of Professor
Peter Sheehan AO as Vice-Chancellor. This commitment has been extended under
his successor, Professor Greg Craven, who has endorsed the current range of projects
on education, health and wellbeing for the people of Timor-Leste.
Educational capacity building in Timor-Leste was initially reliant in part upon
the peacekeeping work of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East
Timor (UNTAET). Departments of the interim government of Timor-Leste provided
strategic directions and policies within which ICFP was established. The Ministry of
Education in Timor-Leste has subsequently been responsible for in-country policies
within which ICFP has operated.
The Australian government, particularly through the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, has supported, in various ways, the involvement of the Marist
Brothers, Australian Catholic University and other partners. This Department
provided funding in recent years for staff of ICFP to undertake post-graduate
study through ACU. The continued funding from organisations such as Misereor
in Germany, Woodside Petroleum, AusAID, Marist Asia-Pacific Solidarity, and the
eMerge Foundation contributed substantially towards the staffing and infrastructure
costs of ICFP. The financial, volunteer and moral support of a number of people
and organisations in Australia, including Palms Australia, has made study at ICFP
possible for a significant number of Timorese students.

xi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge Dr John Murray’s close editing of the draft of the
book and Jimmy Kim’s excellent work in formatting the text and ensuring correct
bibliography and references. They also appreciate the confidence of Michel
Lokhorst from Sense Publishers in accepting the submission of this book and for
his understanding of the role, nature and importance of transformative educational
capacity building in a post-conflict small nation state.

A Note on Terminology

Until the 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia, the name ‘East Timor’ has
been used to describe this area. Although the new nation was not fully independent
of United Nations control until 2002, the term ‘Timor-Leste’ is used for convenience
from 1999 to the present.
Also before 1999 the local people are referred to as ‘East Timorese’ and after
1999 either as ‘Timorese’ or ‘the people of Timor-Leste’.

xii
 GLOSSARY

ACU Australian Catholic University

AQAN ASEAN Quality Assurance Network
ASDT Association for a Democratic East Timor
AUQA Australian Universities Quality Agency
CASEPET Caritas Sweden Educational Project for East Timor
CTC Catholic Teachers College
CNRT National Council of Timorese Resistance
ESRP Emergency School Recovery Project
IACE Institute for Advancing Community Engagement
ICFP Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores
IDPs Internally Displaced Persons
INQAAHE International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher
Education
ISF International Stabilisation Force
JAM Joint Assessment Mission
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
MAPS Marist Asia-Pacific Solidarity
MECYS Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport
MoEC Ministry of Education and Culture
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
NAAAA National Agency for Academic Assessment and Accreditation (also
known as ANAAA)
NGO Non-Government Organisation
TAFE Technical and Further Education
UDT Democratic Union of Timor
UN United Nations
UNAMET United Nations Assistance Mission to Timor-Leste
UNDAF United Nations Development Assistance Framework
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
UNMISET United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor
UNMIT United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste
UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
UNTL Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e (Timor-Leste)

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

On 30 August 1999, the people of Timor-Leste voted overwhelmingly for

independence from their previously forced integration into Indonesia. This result led
to widespread violence from pro-Indonesian groups until the intervention of United
Nations peacekeepers ensured the final security of the people’s independence.
The new nation, supported by many international groups and agencies, including
a United Nations transitional administration, emerged as one of the poorest in the
world. Timor-Leste suffered the combined problems of being a small state in a
post-conflict situation. War had destroyed much of the new nation’s infrastructure
and it had limited resources to provide for a growing population that had low life
expectancy and high levels of illiteracy. Timor-Leste’s future was to be partly shaped
by its past, especially by traditional culture and its inherited colonial legacies from
Portugal and Indonesia. It was also to be influenced by its educated elite returning
from exile and holding differing views on development and also by international
agencies sometimes wanting to impose pre-determined policies upon the new
nation. In addition, the Catholic Church was significantly influential in the whole
country, and especially in the field of education. In what proved to be extremely
complicated situations, Timor-Leste began the difficult task of twenty-first century
nation building.
Although authorities do not agree on how best to define a small state, most cite
population size as the main benchmark. Small states are generally categorised as
having populations of up to two million (Crossley, Bray, Colin, Martin, Atchoaréna,
& Bainton, 2009, p. 5; Randma-Liiv, 2002, pp. 374-375). Three out of four
developing small states are also islands (Bacchus, 2008, p. 128). Timor-Leste, largely
located on the eastern half of the island of Timor and with a current population of
around one million, fits into this pattern. Benedict (1966, pp. 25-26) has argued
that such states are not simply smaller versions of larger ones. People in these
societies are more interdependent, interact more frequently in social situations and
play several roles because these societies may provide a large number of such roles
in the politico-ritual sphere but little specialisation in the economic and technical
areas. In this regard, small states differ greatly from large countries and most of
these characteristics can be shown to be true for Timor-Leste. This small nation
also faced various post-conflict vulnerabilities including struggling to have its voice
heard among international organisations and its neighbouring nation states, adopting
policies that were sometimes not appropriate to its economic, social and political
realities, and grappling with the problems of increasing globalisation (Kelsey, 2005;

1
CHAPTER 1

McGillivray, Naudé, & Santos-Paulino, 2008; Bacchus, 2008). As well, Timor-Leste

being in a post-conflict stage typically had an international peacekeeping force
initially deployed by the United Nations in 1999 to maintain order. It was, however,
atypical in that the new nation was subsequently administered by the United Nations
rather than by its own government. Elections and a new constitution were to be
put in place under this administration and during this process, international aid and
reconstruction initially took place. This meant that the nation was not always the
master of such development policies and some aid agencies operated to their own
agendas.
As in many post-conflict and emerging small states, the development of education
was seen as a critical factor for Timor-Leste’s future. (World Bank, 2005; Paulson
& Rappleye, 2007; Hawrylenko, 2010; UNICEF, 2011). Education has long been
seen as playing a key role in creating social cohesion, facilitating economic recovery
and repairing shattered societies (World Bank, 2005, p. 27; Lowicki, 1999, p. 4;
O’Donoghue & Clarke, 2013, p. 13). It underpins the realisation of other development
goals but there are often high expectations on the education system at a time when
it may have been adversely impacted by conflict. Studies focusing on post-conflict
nations argue that developing and reforming education can take decades and is a
long-term process (World Bank, 2005, p. xvii; Buckland, 2006, p. 8). Educational
capacity building therefore needs a long-term commitment if systemic change is to
be achieved.
However, small states, peaceful or in post-conflict situations, often face major
problems in providing this education for their citizens. There are often limitations on
their ability to achieve economies of scale in the provision of educational services
while the effect of geographical distribution of their population can stymie efforts to
create equal educational opportunities, especially for those living in remote areas.
It is therefore quite possible that education, for all of its benefits, can also increase
social inequality as some sections of the community obtain it while others miss
out. As well, developing culturally relevant curriculum materials and being able to
provide appropriate higher educational opportunities are major problems (Bacchus,
2008). These states also face financial constraints to expand and modernise their
education systems and problems in attaining sufficient qualified teachers and
educational personnel to design and implement development policies (Peters, 2001,
p. 45). Often qualified teachers are snapped up by international NGOs while there
are challenges meeting the needs of out-of-school youth (UNICEF, 2011, p. 10).
Among the efforts needed to overcome these problems is local community
participation. External support for education should build upon – rather than
competes with – local community and authority initiatives. UNESCO (2011) points
out, external actors and/or government do not develop the education sector only,
but by “lower level beneficiaries”. It argues “ownership and sustainability should
be strengthened by working alongside existing country resources and systems of
assessing, strategizing, managing and evaluating capacities and processes” (p. 116).
Nevertheless, it also has to be recognised that the closely knit and personalised

2
 INTRODUCTION

relationships existing within small states can also have a direct impact on the
dynamics of developing their education systems (Farrugia, & Attard, 1989; Bacchus,
2008). For example, in Fiji villagers were found to be reluctant to comment adversely
on a school management committee that might have mismanaged its local school
funds because of the strong ties that existed among the population and their desire to
avoid conflict in the community (Bacchus, 2008, p. 134).
Higher education institutions can also have a disproportionate impact on small
states than in bigger nations because of their limited numbers and prestige. However,
the higher education sector may lack the checks and balances that are more evident
in bigger systems (Crossley et. al., 2009, p. 5). Small states may find it difficult to
offer a large array of educational opportunities in the tertiary sector considering the
small number of students they have, and consequently are unable to increase their
human capital. They sometimes resort to education abroad as an alternative. This
option, however, aggravates rather than mitigates the problem of brain drain – the
emigration of skilled workers to developed countries – because many of the students
who are educated abroad choose to remain abroad. Furthermore, the poorest people
in small states typically cannot afford to study abroad (Atchoaréna, Da Graҫa, &
Marquez, 2008, p. 172). Docquier and Schiff (2009, p. 16) have shown that between
1990 and 2000, the rate of brain drain from small states was 36.1% as opposed to
7.0% for developing countries as a whole.
This book uses Timor-Leste as a case study of a post-conflict small state to explore
one aspect of capacity building in education through a co-operative partnership. This
partnership was principally between the Diocese of Baucau, the Marist Brothers in
Australia, Australian Catholic University and Instituto Católico para a Formação
de Professores (ICFP) at Baucau. Other development groups and agencies have
sometimes been part of this network but the focus of this study is upon the four
principal partners in the project. It is hoped that the study will make a contribution to
the literature on education in post-conflict small nations because there is very little
research on the impact of effective long-term educational partnerships in such states.
Since 1999 a number of international agencies and other bodies have been involved
in what they consider to be ‘partnerships’ with local organisations in Timor-Leste.
These often involved an external organisation working with some local group or
organisation in Timor-Leste in a contractual arrangement and were concerned with
the short-term agendas that are often too characteristic of international aid. Medenhall
examined the example of a partnership between the Norwegian Refugee Council
(NRC) and UNICEF in teacher training in Angola in the aftermath of that country’s
conflict. It outlined the frustrations partners faced because of lack of consultation and
co-ordination, especially when the NRC had the impression that “UNICEF wanted
to run their own race” without consulting their partners (Mendenhall, 2008, p. 152).
The partnership described in this book has been holistic in its scope, intending
to be aware of the interests of all parties, open-ended in its time commitment and
willing to include and foster capacities from a network of support groups. From its
very beginning, the partnership was directed at support for the local people and not

3
CHAPTER 1

just the immediate delivery of results. While the short-term aim was to establish
a primary teacher education college for Timor-Leste, the long-term aim was for
this Institute to become a sustainable body fully incorporated into the culture of
the country and led and staffed by Timorese personnel: a process we have called
‘Timorisation’.
Over time, ICFP created internationally recognised courses and qualifications for
its students. Staff and students enjoy a high standing in the community and good
employment prospects. The Institution is developing a profile in its commitment
to teaching, research, scholarship and community engagement. Nevertheless, these
developments have not been without difficulties. Learning from experience has
been important in planning for future development directions especially as many
aid agencies lag well behind in devoting resources to researching what has been
achieved in their specific programmes (Wood, 2011). The study outlines the history
of the partnership and considers the successes and challenges, as well as the lessons
that may have a bearing on its future developments.
The original vision for the Institute came from the Bishop of Baucau who realised
the necessity for such an institution and provided his endorsement and considerable
social and political influence to initiate the project. The Marist Brothers and
ACU were well placed to be involved in this initiative. Geographically, they were
Australian-based and therefore, relatively close to the island and had the advantage
of widespread community and government support within Australia for the Timorese
people. Institutionally, they were both successful in the areas of teaching and teacher
education with the Marists also having an extensive commitment to teaching
projects in other developing nations of the Pacific region. Ideologically, they were
committed to the broad principles of Catholic social teaching that included, among
other things, a strong belief that education is a key to overcoming disadvantage.
ACU had been established in 1991 through the amalgamation of various Catholic
colleges across the eastern states of Australia which had been offering nationally
approved courses in primary and secondary teacher education, and health sciences
while courses in Arts, Information Technology, Psychology and Business Studies
had also been developed in some of the colleges. The Marist Brothers, along with
the Christian Brothers, were among the founding congregations of ACU. They had
played an active role in establishing the colleges in the Sydney region and thus, there
was already a well-established link between the Order and many of the staff of the
university. On the other hand, such partners were in danger of being seen as foreign
organisations that came from a different society and culture to those of Timor-Leste
and they needed to ensure that local sensitivities and past histories were carefully
considered and addressed.
Amartya Sen, and others have pointed out that there is no one path towards
development (Sen, 1999; Pantoja, 2009). Different things work in different places.
One of the criticisms of development aid in many countries has been that the aid has
been given by the donors for their own geo-strategic motives rather than to address
local needs. As a result, the aid has been wasted through local misapplication or has

4
 INTRODUCTION

led to an unhealthy dependence on the donor nation. Instead, the basic approach of
development must always be the removal of substantial barriers that restrict and
limit human freedom. The links between the components of freedom are empirical
and causal. For example, social opportunities created by better education and/or
health care, which often require public or corporate action, complement individual
opportunities for economic and political participation. These opportunities can
also foster individual initiatives by participants who may overcome their previous
deprivations (Sen, 1999, p. 11). The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005)
was sponsored by the OECD’s Development Co-operation Directorate and was
signed by many countries and aid agencies, including Australia, in order to make
progress towards such enhanced aid effectiveness. The guidelines of the Declaration
include encouragement of:
• Ownership. Developing countries to set their own strategies for poverty
reduction, strengthen their own institutions and reduce corruption;
• Alignment. Donor countries/agencies to align their objectives behind those set by
their developing partners and deliver assistance through local systems;
• Results. Developing countries and donors to shift focus to development results
and measure them;
• Mutual accountability. Donors and partners to be accountable for development
results.
Another agreement is the Accra Agenda for Action (2008), which complemented
the Paris Declaration and was drawn up to make aid and development more
effective. The Agenda included:
• Predictability. Donors to provide a three- to five-year plan to their partner
countries so that arrangements for allocation of personnel and other resources can
be achieved in a timely manner;
• In-country systems to be used as a first option for aid delivery rather than donors’
systems;
• Conditionality. Donors to eschew prescriptive conditions about when and how
aid is spent and adjust the ‘when’ and ‘how’ to suit developing countries’ own
development objectives.
The partnership outlined in this book reflects these international agreements
and Catholic social teaching principles in the implementation and operation of the
project. The study records and evaluates the history and transforming nature of
the partnership until 2012 when it ended in its previous form but still continues
in an evolving role. The distinctive feature and flavour of the partnership is that
it is embedded in the traditions and practices of the principles of Catholic social
teaching. These principles, as outlined in Principles of Engagement on International
Development Through the Lens of Catholic Social Teaching (Davies, MacLaren,
Needham, & Steel, 2010), are inherent in the formation and application of the
partnership. They have been developed over centuries, are practice-based, and

5
CHAPTER 1

include upholding the dignity of the human person, promoting the common good,
providing a preferential option for the poor, ensuring that all people have a minimum
level of participation, and advancing economic justice.
It must however be acknowledged that the involvement of faith-based groups
in such projects are sometimes opposed by development agencies and their
governments. They assert that while faith-based organisations provide motives such
as love, charity, compassion, and a sense of justice to participate in development,
religion should not interfere with the content of development; that is, “it should
not influence what is effectively a secular development agenda, with its own
understandings of what constitutes rationality, progress, social justice, and modern
economic development. In other words, faith-based organisations should be little
more than Oxfam with hymns” (Thomas, 2004, p. 135). This problem certainly
arose in Timor-Leste after 1999 yet, research carried out by the World Bank in 2000
showed that religious leaders and religious institutions were often the most trusted in
developing countries (Nayaran, 2000). Some development scholars insist that it must
be recognised that faith is essential to communities in developing countries – that
religion, with its beliefs, rituals, practices and institutions, is a powerful source of
identity in the lives of people in these communities (Thomas, 2004; Myers, Whaites,
& Wilkinson, 2000; Deneulin, & Bano, 2009).
The next chapter covers a brief history of Timor-Leste followed by a chapter
dealing with educational trends since the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century.
Two chapters then examine the history and scope of the partnership. This is followed
by a discussion of the different roles of the various partners and then an evaluation
the effectiveness of the project. The final chapter discusses the key learnings that
might prove useful in future partnerships operating in developing countries

6
 PART I
UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGE
 CHAPTER 2

TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The island of Timor lies about 600 kilometres northwest of the Australian coast
and has long been inhabited by peoples related to those in the western islands of
Indonesia. About 2500 years ago, Malay peoples began settling in the main eastern
Indonesian islands of Java, Borneo and Sumatra. After 1293, a powerful Javanese
empire emerged in the form of the Majapahit kingdom that extended its influence
over many of the western islands of the Indonesian archipelago and included Timor
as one of its vassal states. What form this vassalage took remains unclear. The most
likely system was through trade with the Timorese exporting sandalwood and some
slaves while accepting nominal control over their fairly isolated society. The island
largely remained divided into a series of local kingdoms that in turn, delegated power
to smaller distinct groups. The Liurai, or traditional rulers of each kingdom, headed
a hierarchical society with the Dato or lesser leaders controlling a smaller population
base in what was a series of complex relationships. The Timorese maintained an
essentially subsistence economy growing maize and rice as the principal crops and
most of the population preferred to live in the cooler, fertile mountain valleys away
from the malarial coastal plains. Climatically, the island experiences a marked wet
and dry season, and even to the present day the last few weeks of the dry season
lead to hungry times among much of the population. None of the great religions
of the region, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, appears to have exerted any real
influence upon the islanders who basically followed animist beliefs. By the early
sixteenth century, the Majapahit kingdom was in decline accelerated by the arrival
of the Portuguese (Taudevin, 1999, pp. 13-14).

A PORTUGUESE COLONY

The Portuguese established outposts in the Indonesian archipelago to control the

spice trade and by the mid-1500s had set up bases on the islands of Solor and Flores
and established contact with Timor for trading purposes through a mestizo class of
people known as ‘Topasse’ (usually the offspring of Portuguese traders and local
women). The Topasse began to settle in Timor itself during the early seventeenth
century and soon became directly involved in the trade and politics of the island. In
1642, the Portuguese moved into Timor, defeating the local chiefs and establishing
a Topasse base at what is now Oecusse. This victory, however, was soon to be
challenged by the Dutch who had begun to move into the same region seeking to
displace Portuguese control over the spice trade. In 1653, the Dutch landed on the
western end of Timor but were defeated by the Topasse and left the island. The Dutch

9
CHAPTER 2

returned in 1746 and the Topasse were forced to appeal for Portuguese assistance. At
the battle of Penfui in 1749, the Dutch defeated the Topasse/Portuguese forces and
after this time, Timor was effectively divided into two, with the Dutch controlling
most of the western half and the Portuguese the east plus a small enclave around
Oecusse. Strictly speaking, this division was only finally confirmed in a treaty
signed as late as 1915 but after 1750 the East Timorese settled into more than two
hundred years of Portuguese colonisation (Taylor, 1999, pp. 3-5).
While Catholicism played an important role in influencing the initial Portuguese
quest for empire, Timor proved to be of only marginal interest to Lisbon. For a long
period, Portuguese control over traditional Timorese society was minimal except
for the conversion of some of the population to Catholicism. As long as they could
exercise external authority and impose some religious and cultural values upon the
society in a general way, the Portuguese left traditional concepts of kinship and
obligation largely unchanged. By the early twentieth century, Portugal was in
decline as a great power and attempted to reinvigorate itself by making its colonies
more productive from its point of view. Amidst considerable opposition from the
local population, the Portuguese began to develop new infrastructure by using forced
labour and to introduce more commercial farming. The old kingdoms were also
abolished and new administrative units were established as Portuguese control over
the interior became more formalised (McGregor, Skeaff, & Bevan, 2012, p. 1131).
Although Catholic missionaries had been in East Timor for hundreds of years,
it was only in 1930 that the Church was given representation on local legislative
councils. In 1940 the Concordat and Missionary Agreement was signed between the
Portuguese government and the Vatican whereby the Catholic Church was to operate
freely within the colony pursuing a ‘civilising influence’ over the people. It now
became a legal requirement that Timorese could only obtain Portuguese citizenship
if they converted to Catholicism. Between 1932 and 1968, educated Timorese from
Jesuit and Dominican schools, known as letrados, became the Portuguese-speaking
elite in East Timor and were expected to assist in administration of the colonial
system (Millo & Barnett, 2004, p. 725). However, as the next chapter points out,
these educational efforts were extremely limited. Despite the advantages enjoyed by
the Catholic Church after this time, as late as 1974 a large majority of East Timorese
remained Animist by religion (McGregor et al., 2012, p. 1133).
These developing Portuguese policies were undermined to some degree when on
17 December 1941, 400 Australian and Dutch commandoes arrived uninvited in an
attempt to head off any use of the island as a base by the Japanese in the Pacific War.
The commandoes were too small in number to hold back the large Japanese invasion
force that seized the capital, Dili, and in February 1942 the Japanese overran most of
the island. Many of the troops escaped to the mountains and were able to maintain
resistance to the Japanese with the support of locals until they were evacuated to
Australia in early 1943. One of these men was Paddy Kenneally, a former wharf
labourer, who was to become a long-term supporter of the Timorese cause. Between
1942 and 1945 over 60000 Timorese lost their lives assisting these troops or in

10
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

resisting the Japanese occupation. At the end of the war the Portuguese returned
to once again administer a devastated economy and a ruined infrastructure. Having
joined the United Nations in 1955, the Portuguese government committed itself,
in theory, to the eventual process of decolonisation of its old empire. However, it
refused to set a timetable for such changes and did little to prepare its colonies for
them. Instead, the Portuguese found themselves involved in expensive wars against
local independence movements in their African colonies of Angola and Mozambique.
This involvement absorbed much of their resources and interests and East Timor was
regarded as something of a backwater (Taylor, 1999, pp. 12-19).
Meanwhile other developments in the South East Asian region would have
their subsequent impact upon Timor. In the late 1940s, the Dutch East Indies was
transformed into the new nation of Indonesia with the support and sponsorship
of nearby Australia. From then on, the emergence of such a large and potentially
useful trading partner on its doorstep was to figure strongly in Australian foreign
policy. On the other hand, having supported the Portuguese return to East Timor
in 1945, Australia subsequently paid little attention to the island. Indonesia, under
President Sukarno, was an ethnically diverse and often economically mismanaged
nation. Sukarno partly consolidated his power within the system and strengthened
the central government’s control over outlying islands by formenting nationalist
claims. He pushed for the occupation of the western half of New Guinea (Irian Jaya)
from the Dutch and then opposed the formation of the Federation of Malaysia in
1963 by a campaign of konfrontasi (confrontation). Interestingly, Sukarno never
made any claims upon East Timor during this time, and his public statements
suggested no Indonesian interest in this colonial enclave. There is some evidence
that privately, the government expected that, in the long run, East Timor might be
incorporated into Indonesia but it was not an immediate priority. In 1965, the army,
led by General Suharto, came to power in a chaotic period in which it destroyed
the powerful Indonesian Communist party and killed over 500000 people. Australia
welcomed the change of government, as the new regime was firmly anti-communist
and friendly to the West. Alarmed by the presence of communist influences in South
East Asia and wanting a stable pro-western Indonesia along with access through
Indonesian deep ocean channels for its nuclear submarines, the United States was
also very sympathetic to this new regime.
In 1974, young army officers staged a military coup in Portugal, ending fifty
odd years of right wing dictatorship and committing the nation to democracy and
decolonisation. Angola and Mozambique were quickly granted their independence
but events in East Timor moved more slowly. Since the 1960s, part of the East
Timorese educated elite had met clandestinely to consider issues such as independence
and these ideas found some voice in a Catholic newspaper, but the police quickly
closed it down. In May 1974 the governor of the province now allowed the creation
of political associations (not parties) and three main groups quickly emerged. The
First was the Democratic Union of Timor (UDT). It wanted autonomy for the
province while still maintaining links with Portugal. It had support from many in the

11
CHAPTER 2

administrative elite, the plantation growers and the liurai, although internal divisions
would soon appear within these groups. The second association was Apodeti that
wanted integration with Indonesia but gained little popular support. Its base was the
small Muslim community in Dili and some areas to the south west of the capital.
The third group was the Association for a Democratic East Timor (ASDT), which
in September 1974 changed its name to Fretilin (Frente Revolucionario de Timor
Leste Independente). Adopting a mixture of socialism and democracy, it aimed at
gradual independence from Portugal (in about eight years) accompanied by a range
of reforms to East Timorese society. Its original members also largely came from
the administrative elite with a base in Dili but maintained ties with the rural areas
by advocating agricultural, literacy and health reforms. The leading figures in
association at the time included Nicolau Lobato, Xavier do Amaral, Jose Ramos-
Horta, Alarico Fernandes and Justino Mota. Ramos-Horta visited Indonesia in June
1974 and was assured by its foreign minister that his country would support East
Timorese independence. Behind the scenes, however, the Indonesian government,
especially the military, took a different view of future developments.
In September 1974, the Australian government, now led by Gough Whitlam,
indicated in a meeting with General Suharto that it considered East Timorese
independence not viable and that the colony should be integrated into Indonesia
but in accordance with the wishes of its people. What remained unclear in such
a policy was what would happen if integration with Indonesia was not the wish
of the East Timorese people. Nevertheless, this policy had essentially been the
stance of all Australian governments since the early 1960s. The discovery of
rich oil and gas deposits in the seabed off the southern East Timorese coast only
added to Australia’s interest in supporting Indonesia, as it was felt that it would be
harder to negotiate a better deal for sharing these riches with either Portugal or an
independent East Timor. In any event, the Indonesian government received clear
signals from its neighbour that the integration of East Timor would be the logical
and most acceptable course for the future. From this point onwards, the Indonesian
government became more vocal and pro-active in seeking East Timorese integration
(Taudevin, 1999, pp. 23-31).
In contrast, the Portuguese government was divided over what was the best
policy to pursue and tended to vacillate over East Timor’s future. Eventually, in
July 1975, it set elections to be held in October 1976 for a General Assembly that
would determine this question, while declaring that it would end direct colonial
rule by October 1978. Well before that date, internal events in East Timor would
see a rapid change in the political situation. In early 1975, the UDT and Fretilin
entered into a temporary alliance in the face of a possible Indonesian takeover of
the colony, but over time relations between the two parties began to deteriorate. The
UDT, when it was formed, was the more popular of the two, but Fretilin, with its
stance over independence and its increasing rural welfare programmes, overtook it
as the stronger party. In July 1975, the Portuguese allowed local council elections,
and Fretilin won around 55 per cent of the popular vote.

12
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The UDT leadership was increasingly susceptible to Indonesian propaganda that

Fretilin, which had a Marxist faction within it, was really a communist organisation
that would soon stage a coup and take over the country. The Indonesians played
upon these fears and the fact that they would then have to intervene to prevent Timor
going the way of Vietnam and Cambodia, which had recently fallen to communist
forces. Spooked by these reports and by the obviously growing power of Fretilin,
the UDT decided to forestall such a possibility by staging its own coup. On the
evening of 10 August 1975, forces loyal to UDT leader Lopes da Cruz took over
Dili’s police headquarters and harbour and seized the radio stations and airports in
Dili and Baucau in a bloodless coup. They then appealed for international support
to counter any moves by Portugal to hand over East Timor to Fretilin. Ten days
later, Fretilin staged a counter-coup resulting in three weeks of bitter fighting during
which at least three thousand people were killed and the Portuguese governor fled
to nearby Atauro Island. Fretilin seized control of East Timor, and the remnants
of the UDT fled across the border to West Timor to seek Indonesian assistance.
Since the Portuguese administration had effectively left the country, Fretilin formed
a new government, although it also asked the Portuguese to return at least for the
immediate future.

INDONESIAN CONTROL

Stunned by the success of Fretilin, the Indonesian response by October was to send
‘volunteers’ from West Timor to seize control of the border towns of Batugede,
Balibo and Maliana. This move, it was hoped, would provide an easy road into the
rest of Timor but Fretilin forces were quickly able to stymie such advances. It was in
Balibo that five journalists (two Australians, two British and a New Zealander) were
killed, which was covered up by Indonesian military. The border strategy obviously
did not achieve its aims and the Indonesian government was faced with the fact
that Fretilin, in an attempt to secure international support, had unilaterally declared
the independence of East Timor on 28 November 1975. The Suharto regime now
contemplated a full-scale invasion. On 5 December, US President, Gerald Ford,
and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, visited Jakarta and informed President
Suharto that American military aid to Indonesia would not be affected by any possible
action towards East Timor. The Indonesian invasion subsequently commenced with
an air and seaborne assault on Dili on 7 December while other troops crossed the
land borders. Troops quickly secured control of all of the major towns in the country
as the government and much of the population fled into the mountains. Within two
weeks of the invasion, the Indonesians had set up a provisional government mainly
composed of UDT and Apodeti members. Although the international community,
including Australia and the United States, expressed concerns over the invasion,
nothing was done, individually or collectively, against Indonesia for its behaviour.
The United Nations between 1975 and 1983 regularly called upon the Indonesian
government to withdraw its troops without delay, but aside from compiling annual

13
CHAPTER 2

reports, did little else. In May 1976, a puppet twenty-eight member ‘People’s
Assembly’ signed a petition supporting integration of their country with Indonesia.
On 17 July, President Suharto signed a Bill of Integration, formally making East
Timor a province of Indonesia (Taylor, 1999, pp. 62-65).
Although the Indonesian armed forces found it relatively easy to gain control of
the main towns of East Timor, control over the countryside was another matter. For
the first three years of the war, at least two thirds of the population actually lived
outside of Indonesian control and its authority frequently did not extend much beyond
the boundaries of most urban areas. The lack of roads and the rugged terrain made
it difficult for a conventional army to operate successfully in most places and many
army units became so demoralised by the war that they had to be continually replaced,
often by less experienced troops. However, over time, the Indonesians were able to
use new military equipment and more troops to destroy food supplies and relocate
the population away from the mountain areas. Mobile patrols and regular searches of
designated zones made it increasingly hard for Fretilin to sustain its military operations.
By the early 1980s, its forces had been greatly reduced and could only operate in
small bands in three separate areas of the country – the central, border and eastern
regions. In 1981, Xanama Gusmao was elected President of the committee and leader
of Fretilin forces. He maintained a long guerrilla struggle despite many attempts to
capture him. Even at the end of the 1980s, fifteen years after the Indonesian invasion,
there were still around 1200 or so Fretilin guerrillas operating in small bands and
engaging in hit and run operations against Indonesian troops. Fretilin also maintained
considerable support amongst the local population, even in resettled areas amidst
the presence of the military, police and police spies. The village structures, although
badly disrupted by the Indonesian upheaval, still remained strong enough to foster
and sustain opposition to Indonesian rule (Leach, 2012, pp. 255-263).
The Catholic Church underwent a transformation in this new environment. The
Indonesian government tended outwardly to treat the Church with respect and
even gave some funding for Christian monuments and cathedrals. As well, under
Indonesia’s national development policy, all of its people were required to believe
in one God and to identify with one of a number of recognised world religions. As
a result, by 1994 some 90% of the population had converted to Catholicism partly
as a form of protest against Indonesian rule. With the loss of Portuguese clergy
after 1974, the native born priests now took on a greater role within country and
were identified with the people. The Vatican allowed services to be conducted in
Tetum (the main local language and lingua franca) rather than Bahasa Indonesia and
this strengthened solidarity within the local population. The Church also provided
institutional support through schools and medical services that were an alternative to
the Indonesian system. Jakarta put pressure upon the Vatican, largely without success,
to modify this obvious local religious opposition and bring the local churches under
firmer control (McGregor et al., 2012, pp. 1134-36)
Indonesian rule in East Timor used a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. The military
remained an ever-threatening presence with at least 20000 troops stationed there

14
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

at any given time. The population was often relocated into controlled villages and
made to work on new projects and commercial crop plantations. Some estimates
suggest that about 80% of the population was resettled in this way. Any resistance
was brutally suppressed and there is considerable debate about how many Timorese
died during the entire period of Indonesian control. The best estimate is perhaps
as many as 150000 out of a pre-1975 population of over 653000. The government
also encouraged new settlers from other parts of Indonesia to immigrate to East
Timor. Although the total numbers were fairly small, they did take over many of
the commercial farms and business activities of the province. Furthermore, the
government made up for the lack of trained administrative staff by bringing in
Javanese public servants to administer the province, although they usually came
on fixed term contracts. On the positive side, the government certainly built new
infrastructure and by 1990, its construction efforts on roads, bridges and schools was
far greater than anything carried out by the Portuguese in their hundreds of years of
colonisation.

THE COLLAPSE OF INDONESIAN CONTROL

By 1990, opposition to Indonesian rule continued to mount within East Timor and
now Indonesia also found itself in a changing world. The erosion and collapse of
communism in Eastern Europe and the ending of much of the Cold War tensions
saw a greater focus in both Europe and the United States upon human rights abuses
around the globe. Portugal came under pressure from other members of the European
Parliament to act, and the United Nations began to take a more pro-active approach
on the East Timor issue. In October 1989, anxious to show itself in a better light, the
Indonesian government allowed Pope John Paul II to consecrate a new cathedral in
Dili and conduct an open air Mass at Tasi Tolu before 100000 people. Although the
Vatican muted its criticism of human rights abuses in East Timor, the Mass ended
with a demonstration demanding independence. The demonstrators were beaten by
the police in front of foreign photographers and journalists who reported the event
to the rest of the world. Under pressure, the Indonesians then tried a two-handed
approach. In 1991, they increased military operations in a bid to crush opponents
but also agreed to a visit by a Portuguese parliamentary delegation to monitor the
situation. However, at the last moment the visit was cancelled because the military
objected to journalists covering the visit. On 27 October, as the visit was being called
off, troops surrounded a church in Dili where many pro-independence supporters
were gathered and killed Sebastiao Gomes, a young student, while arresting twenty
five others. On 12 November, a memorial Mass was held in the church for Gomes
and then many began walking towards his grave in the Santa Cruz cemetery. This
crowd soon swelled to around two thousand and independence banners were
unfurled. At the cemetery, they were met by Indonesian troops who opened fire
without warning, killing some 273 Timorese. A British photojournalist, Max Stahl,
captured these events, smuggled his tape out of the country, and the massacre was

15
CHAPTER 2

soon being shown around the world. The result was a growing wave of international
opposition during the next five years to Indonesian policies in East Timor
At first, despite the mounting criticism, it seemed that nothing had changed in Timor.
The military hardened its policies in pursuing Fretilin and other pro-independence
supporters. In 1992, Gusmao was captured, tried and sentenced to twenty years’
jail. In 1997, however, Indonesia was caught up in the Asian currency crisis. The
stock exchange collapsed, investment dried up and unemployment soared. The
Suharto regime, long accused of corruption was now blamed for the hard economic
times as well. Eventually, in May 1998 Suharto was forced to resign the presidency,
handing over power to B. J. Habibie, a chosen successor, considered safe enough
to lead the transition to the post-Suharto era. The new president faced enormous
financial turmoil and internal unrest and clearly needed international backing for his
failing economy. Among other moves was Habibie’s decision to try to improve his
international standing and to end the costly military involvement in East Timor by
offering, in June 1998, to give the province autonomy within the Indonesian political
system. This offer was rejected not only by Timorese independence movement but
also the Indonesian military in East Timor. They now began to have doubts about
the long-term commitment of Jakarta to maintaining a hold over the province and
decided to take matters into their own hands. In the latter half of 1998, they began
to recruit around 5000 West Timorese and even regular Indonesian army soldiers,
to act as a paramilitary force and moved them into or close to the border regions of
East Timor.
In late January 1999, the Indonesian government suddenly announced that it
would be prepared to accept letting the people of East Timor go. Habibie had no real
plan for doing so, nor had he consulted with the United Nations, Portugal or the pro-
independence leaders of East Timor on such a proposal. However, a plan was rapidly
developed that the people of East Timor should be allowed a referendum to decide
upon their future. This proposal was finally accepted in May 1999 by Indonesia
and Portugal, and the Secretary-General of the UN was authorised to conduct such
a referendum. In turn, the Indonesian armed forces were to be held responsible for
security before, during and after the plebiscite. In fact, since November 1998 elements
within the armed forces had begun Operasi Sapu Jagad, or ‘Operation Global Clean
Sweep’, which involved using the paramilitary units to conduct escalating levels of
violence in order to portray East Timor as being racked by civil war and incapable
of self-government. The military hoped that this operation would undermine the
referendum and death squads focused on eliminating pro-independence leaders. The
plan ran counter to the agreements with the UN, but in Jakarta, the main political
parties campaigning for the June assembly elections were all pushing a pro-unity
line and were unhappy that what they regarded as a part of Indonesia might possibly
be given its independence. In that political climate, the armed forces had little real
check upon their actions. The paramilitary violence worsened during the first eight
months of 1999, with up to 5000-6000 people being killed and thousands again
fleeing from their homes. The small United Nation electoral team (UNAMET)

16
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

conducting voter registration and the poll were largely spared any direct violence
but found it difficult to operate. There were doubts as to whether voters would turn
out on polling day because of intimidation. The referendum was postponed twice
because of the problems of violence. However, on 30 August 1999, over 98% of
registered voters turned out to cast their ballots and it was announced on 4 September
that 78% had voted for independence rather than for the alternative of remaining an
autonomous province of Indonesia (Taudevin, 1999, p. 275).

A NEW NATION EMERGES

Stunned by the vote, the Indonesian military then stood by as paramilitary units
destroyed buildings in Dili and drove hundreds of thousands of people either into
the mountains or into refugee camps in West Timor. Dili itself became a ghost
town and over 80% of the East Timor’s infrastructure was destroyed, including
almost all of its electrical grid. The United Nations now came under pressure to
intervene and by 13 September, faced with the possibility of international financial
and trade embargoes, Habibie announced that he would accept the entry of a UN
peacekeeping force into East Timor. After years of criticism of its policies by Paddy
Kenneally and other supporters of the East Timorese, the Australian government
finally reversed its long-standing policies in January and agreed to head a force of
some 8000 peacekeepers and the first troops landed in Dili on 20 September. The
Indonesian Army officially handed over security responsibilities for East Timor to
this force on 27 September and it began the immense task of restoring law and
order and dealing with paramilitary units still operating along the border regions
with West Timor. Once the military situation began to improve, the UN could move
civilian administrators into the country to re-establish the structures of government
and prepare the nation for independence.
The new administration formed the UN Transitional Administration in East
Timor (UNTAET). Although the United Nations certainly went through the outward
process of consultation, there is some merit in the argument that its administrators
basically arrived with preconceived views for creating a new nation – what are
sometimes referred to as the ‘one-eyed giant’ approaches that ignore much of what is
needed beyond simple material issues. UNTAET quickly marginalised and ignored
the Catholic Church, for example, regarding it as irrelevant to the task of nation
building even though it was one of the few remaining institutions with much of its
network of structures still intact (McGregor et al., 2012, p. 1137). It also had little
real understanding of Timorese society and quickly came to rely upon some key
individuals for guidance on these matters.
Various groups that had either hidden in the mountains, been forced into exile
overseas or, as in the case of Xanama Gusmao, had been released from Indonesian
prisons, began to emerge to join in the transition process. The main umbrella
organisation for these groups was the National Council of Timorese Resistance
(CNRT). This organisation appointed representatives right down to the village and

17
CHAPTER 2

hamlet level whereas UNTAET tended to operate only down to the district level.
CNRT then sent out field workers to co-ordinate with CNRT representatives at the
lower levels of authority. Outwardly, CNRT, with Gusmao as its chairman/president,
gave the appearance of national unity and seemed to speak with one voice for the
Timorese people. It was on Gusmao’s advice and recommendation that a transitional
cabinet was set up by UNTAET in July 2000. The CNRT denied the existence of any
internal opposition to its policies because it was anxious to display a strong sense of
cultural unity and be seen by UNTAET as speaking with authority. However, there
were growing and often serious underlying differences within the organisation and
across its political groupings, differences that would later become a problem for the
new country.
In August 2000, for example, CNRT recommended that Portuguese be the official
language of the country (followed by Tetum as the second language) even though
less than 10% of the population spoke Portuguese and almost no one under the age
of thirty understood it. This decision reflected the generational and educational gaps
between the older Portuguese-educated leadership and the younger, Indonesian-
educated leaders. The more popular Tetum had the disadvantage of being basically
an oral language and required investment of considerable resources to give it a
written form. Further differences were exacerbated by émigré groups heading back
from exile in Australia, Portugal and its other colonies and the United States where
each had built up its own ties and links. Many members of Fretilin, for example,
saw the Catholic Church as a colonial hangover and did not want to work with it,
while some clergy had long disapproved of Fretilin’s Marxist roots. There were also
long standing regional differences, especially between east-west (Firaku-Kaladi) as
well as the issue of the older influence of the Liurai and how their authority would
be incorporated into any new democratic nation state. CNRT comprised sixteen
political ‘parties’ or groups that essentially represented many of these obvious
differences. Fretilin, already the largest party and experienced in organising grass
roots resistance during Indonesian rule, refused to accept some of CNRT’s internal
agreements and in August 2000 quit the organisation. It began establishing structures
of authority from the village up that ran parallel to the CNRT authority base.
In the August 2001 vote for a Constituent Assembly, designed to draft a new
constitution, Fretilin emerged as the largest party, securing 55 of the final 88 seats,
and then dominated proceedings. Many members of the newer and smaller parties
were only able to join a future government by essentially accepting the authority of
Fretilin. The new constitution, modelled upon that of Portugal, created a unicameral
legislature elected for five years with a powerful office of prime minister and cabinet
over a government that was given strong central powers. The popularly elected
president (also with a five-year term) possessed only the ceremonial powers of a
Head of State. Once the election for the Constituent Assembly had been completed,
UNTAET created a second transitional government based upon these results and
Mari Alkatiri, a long time Fretilin member, became the new prime minister. The
Constituent Assembly, despite some opposition from minor parties, deemed further

18
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

legislative elections unnecessary and in late January 2002 transformed itself into the
future legislature of the nation. This left only the need for the presidential election
to be conducted and on 15 April 2002 Gusmao, running without any party label,
secured 82% of the popular vote. Technically, the UN accepted Timor-Leste as a new
state on 20 May 2002 but National Independence Day is celebrated on 28 November,
as that day in 1975 was regarded as the nation’s real birthday. The UN also remained
within the new nation to provide security and technical infrastructure roles through
its UN Mission in East Timor (UNMISET).
Gusmao soon found that his power was restricted by the constitution and his
authority therefore rested upon some backing from the army, many of whom
were ex-Fretilin fighters, as well as upon his obvious personal popularity. Yet the
president had little real power over his prime minister or cabinet or the actions of any
them. For example, the first Minister for Internal Affairs, Rogerio Lobato not only
controlled the police force but went out of his way to stack it with a high proportion
of ex-guerrillas. The increasing factionalism within Fretilin meant that the eastern-
region police and the western-region army, despite otherwise similar backgrounds,
were soon at loggerheads. Intense rivalry between the groups over issues such as
pay and prestige, and even clashes between them from as early as 2002 precipitated
further civil unrest from a general population unhappy about the nation’s economic
problems. There were further police-army clashes in December 2004 before even
greater violence in 2006.
In April 2006, fighting broke out again between parts of the army and the police
force, leading to deaths and destruction, especially in Dili. Alkatiri was accused
of using hit squads to try to murder his political opponents and Gusmao insisted
that either he or the prime minister should resign. This ultimatum represented the
culmination of years of growing alienation between the two men. Although Alkatiri
received backing from his party, continued unrest eventually led to his resignation
in June. An Australian-led International Stabilization Force (ISF) arrived to restore
order in late May. This was supplemented by the subsequent arrival of over 1600
international police as part of another UN mission known as UNMIT. By 2007, the
situation was stable enough to hold elections for the presidency and the unicameral
legislature. In a crowded field of candidates, Ramos-Horta, the former foreign
minister, was forced into a second round against his Fretilin opponent but then
easily secured the Presidency with nearly 70% of the popular vote. Gusmao had
decided to contest a seat in the Assembly heading a revived CNRT. Fretilin had been
discredited by past events and its vote was reduced to 29%. It held 21 assembly
seats, making it still the largest party but well short of a majority and only just ahead
of CNRT with 24% of the vote and 18 seats. The various parties then struggled
to negotiate some form of government and on 6 August, Ramos-Horta announced
that he would recognise Gusmao’s CNRT coalition as the government and began
appointing cabinet ministers. While such a decision would have been acceptable in
a more mature democratic culture, Fretilin and other opponents of the government
greeted it with dismay.

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CHAPTER 2

As a result, political instability and factionalism intensified and in February 2008

both the president and prime minister were the targets of assassination attempts by
rogue elements led by Alfredo Reinado. He had been responsible for leading much
of the violence in April-May 2006 and had then escaped from prison in August of
that year and had taken to the hills as a guerrilla fighter. Gusmao escaped any harm
but Ramos-Horta was severely wounded and Reinado was killed in a shoot-out with
security forces. The President recuperated in hospital and stayed among friends in
Darwin before resuming his post later in the year. The remaining rebels involved
eventually surrendered to authorities and in March 2010 received prison sentences
of up to sixteen years, but the President subsequently pardoned or commuted
most of these sentences. Although peace returned to the island during 2008, the
United Nations agreed to a request to extend its security presence for a further five
years until 2013. The Australian and New Zealand defence forces also provided
an ongoing security presence through ISF with some 390 Australian and 70 New
Zealand personnel stationed in the country during 2012. However, on 21 November
2012, the ISF began the closure of its operations with all of its troops leaving by
April 2013. A small and separate Australian unit remained to help train the East
Timorese army (Doherty & Wroe, 2012).
In March 2012, Ramos-Horta ran third in the next presidential election and was
eliminated from the second round of voting, which was contested between Francisco
Guterres and Jose Maria Vasconcelos (whose nom de guerre is Taur Matan Ruak).
In the April poll, Ruak secured 61.2% of the popular vote. The following July
Gusmao’s party clearly outpolled Fretilin in the next Assembly election although it
still fell short of a majority of seats and so the former coalition continued to govern.
Unlike previous elections, the poll was conducted with relatively little violence and
the parties also accepted the Assembly election results despite some grumbling over
it from Fretilin. This was another sign of the slow but steady growth of democratic
processes within the new nation, a remarkable change given the violence of the past
and the ongoing economic challenges faced by the government.

PROBLEMS FOR THE NATION

Since independence, the various governments of Timor-Leste have struggled to

implement economic improvement in what is, by world standards, a small and
poor nation. The per capita income in 2002 was around US$500. Over 40% of the
population were living below the poverty line, over 50% were illiterate and one in
ten children died before the age of five. Life expectancy for males was only around
fifty-five years. To add to the nation’s problems, there was also a reduction in crop
yields due to late rainfall in 2002 and then floods in 2003. The economy contracted
in 2003 and only achieved small growth in 2004-5 before falling again due to
violence in 2006. Since that time, it has shown growth but so have inflation and
the population (reaching the one million mark by 2009) that add to economic and
social pressures. The 2008 global financial crisis created yet another problem to an

20
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

economy struggling to get onto its feet and whose best asset, large oil reserves, have
proved both a blessing and possibly a curse.
During 2002, the UN administration reached agreement with Australia confirming
earlier boundary treaties signed with Indonesia over valuable oil and gas fields in
the Timor Sea. Further intense negotiations then followed between Australia and the
new Timorese government over the Greater Sunrise energy field further south in the
Timor Sea. This was a field over which there were competing jurisdictional claims
by both countries. Recent evidence indicates that the Australian government spied
upon and even bugged the cabinet room in Dili so that it could gain an advantage
in its negotiations over the oil. Eventually, in January 2006, both nations signed
a treaty to share the revenues from this field, estimated at up to AU$40 billion,
equally. They also agreed that any future territorial claims on the area would be
postponed for the next sixty years. These decisions have recently been challenged
by the Timorese government as unfair and remain a source of tension between the
two nations. Nevertheless, even by 2005, it was possible for the East Timorese
government to establish a Petroleum Fund as its main source of income to be used
for future development. By June 2008, it was worth over US$3.2 billion and this had
risen to $10.2 billion by 2012, even though the government was also drawing nearly
90% of its billion-dollar budget from this fund. These oil and gas resources have not
necessarily translated into greater employment or alleviation of poverty amongst the
local population, any more than the billions in foreign aid spent over the past decade
have done. (Anderson, 2012, pp. 136-139; Schofield, 2005).
Timor-Leste has a chronic shortage of basic infrastructure and remains an
essentially agricultural economy (much of it subsistence farming) that comprises
at least 30% of the GDP. Unlike some developing nations, it lacks labour intensive
industries such as garment making and relies too much upon agriculture that is
seasonal in its demands. Although officially the unemployment rate in 2014 is
claimed to be around 11%, it may well be two to three times this as it is difficult to
estimate in what is largely a subsistence economy. The improving high school system
allows 15000 to 20000 students to graduate each year, but only 2000-3000 students
then go onto higher education. The children of poorer families usually miss out
on such opportunities and often then face few employment prospects. The nation’s
fledgling justice system and banking sector, for example, remain too inexperienced
to function without foreign assistance. In 2010, Gusmao launched the Strategic
Development Plan intended to transform his nation by 2030 from the poorest state
in South East Asia into an upper middle class society based upon a sustainable and
non-oil economy (Shoesmith, 2012, p. 285). In 2011, the government changed the
rules of its Petroleum Fund, which had previously been conservatively invested in
international bonds to allow up to half the fund to be invested in equities and a
further 10% to be used as collateral for loans. This change was intended to fund a
state-led development by diversifying investments. Critics of the move, however,
fear that inexperienced leadership within the various ministries will lead to large
sums being lost and mismanaged through fraud or ill-advised equity dealings. In any

21
CHAPTER 2

event, Timor-Leste, a small state undergoing post-conflict traumas, remains one of

the most oil-dependent nations in the world in terms of its government revenue and
has little by way of an advanced economy (Bachelard, 2012).
As the historical overview has shown, Timor-Leste has had a turbulent past and
for centuries its people have not been masters of their own country. Other nations
have imposed themselves upon the island and set agendas to suit themselves. These
have included policies concerning education, or often the lack of it that have played
a major role in shaping today’s society. To that story we turn in the next chapter.

22
 CHAPTER 3

TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

In order to understand the context of the partnership under study in this book,
the evolution of the education system in Timor-Leste needs to be explored. This
chapter provides an historical context for this process from the time of Portuguese
colonisation to that of the Independence vote. It then considers the development
of education during the transition period, following Independence, during which
time ICFP was established in Baucau, and then the subsequent broader educational
context within which this new institution found itself within Timorese society.
Two distinctive periods shaped the education system in East Timor before its vote
for independence in 1999. As the United Nations Development Programme reported
in 2002, “East Timor’s education system today is the legacy of colonial rule, but by
two colonial powers that had very different priorities” (UNDP, 2002, p. 47). The
Portuguese colonial period demonstrated little interest in mass education for the East
Timorese, but the small percentage of the population who were educated received
high quality education and became leaders in the subsequent period. The Indonesians,
who ruled after the Portuguese, encouraged universal primary education, but their
agenda served more to indoctrinate the young into Indonesian society than develop
an independent education system.

EDUCATION DURING PORTUGUESE COLONISATION

Under Portuguese colonial rule, the education system in East Timor remained
restricted and exclusive to an elite over a long period of time. Even by 1909, the
Portuguese had only established seventeen public schools with 1035 students
(Carey, 1999, p. 78). Student numbers only increased to 2979 students by 1937
and it was not until 1952 that the first public secondary school was finally opened
(Nicolai, 2004, p. 42). Subsequently, throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, there
was substantial investment in the education sector with a fivefold increase in the
number of students enrolled in primary schools and a doubling in the number of
secondary students. By 1972, when there were some 60000 students in primary
schools, the total population of East Timor was approximately 600000 (Pedersen
& Arneberg, 1999, p. 85). Nevertheless despite this dramatic increase in student
numbers since 1960, less than 10% of the population were identified as literate when
the Portuguese left their former colony (World Bank, 2001, p. 13).
Although the education system during the Portuguese era was not expanded until
the last years of colonisation, there is agreement that the quality of education was
superior to that provided by the Indonesians (Beck, 2008b, p. 40; Odling-Smee,

23
CHAPTER 3

1999, p. 14). There was better discipline and a wider sense of literature and culture.
However, despite its high quality, this education promoted Portuguese culture and
values in order to underscore East Timor’s ties to the Portuguese empire. There was
little focus on local culture and geography, and the link to Portugal represented a
“window to the west” for the elite (Wu, 2000, p. 3). Rote learning was the preferred
method of instruction.
Nevertheless, a number of those educated under this system were sent to Portugal
to complete their education. It was these students who often brought back with
them ideas of liberation and freedom (Millo & Barnett, 2004, p. 726). They took up
leadership roles in Timor-Leste after it won its independence and played an integral
role in building their nation. Some of these people were later instrumental in forming
CNRT and its Educational Division played an important part in shaping Timor-
Leste’s education system in the period of transition after independence. Before
the invasion by Indonesia, Fretilin was advocating greater literacy for the East
Timorese. It initiated an education campaign in various communities and focused
on the importance of decolonising the education system and promoting community
education (Hill, 2002). Some Portuguese-educated students became primary school
teachers when they had completed four years of primary education as well as a
few months of teacher training that certified them to teach grades 1 and 2. In the
aftermath of independence, these students often worked as teachers of Portuguese
(UNDP, 2002, p. 47).

EDUCATION UNDER INDONESIAN RULE

After Indonesia invaded East Timor, it regarded education as one of the means to
integrate the region into the rest of Indonesia and they quickly established a system
that promoted Indonesian culture and history. However, it took a number of years
to completely abolish the overall Portuguese school system and replace it with the
Indonesian one (Beck, 2008a, p. 4). The new curriculum developed subjects such
as history and geography from an Indonesian perspective and was often taught by
Indonesian teachers. The curriculum “forced teachers to teach particular content in
a directed way with the result that teachers were always teaching with the fear of
losing their jobs if examination results were not good enough” (Beck, 2006, p. 146).
The Portuguese language was replaced by Bahasa Indonesia, which became the
main language of instruction.
The level of literacy also increased exponentially during the Indonesian occupation.
The Indonesian government introduced the concept of Education for All, “which
was part of a UN programme to have all children gain a primary education and then
a junior secondary education” (Earnest, Beck, & Supit, 2008, p. 79). Thus, universal
primary education became mandatory and outwardly it became readily available as
the number of primary students burgeoned between 1975 and 1999 (Nicolai, 2004,
p. 44). Taylor (1999), however, identified this “progress” in education as a myth

24
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

propagated by the Indonesians to project to the international community the benefits

of their control over East Timor. He argued that:
• A publication by the Indonesian military in 1984 entitled “East Timor Develops”
claimed that 400 primary schools had been built in the previous nine years,
containing 98850 students and 2446 teachers. No comparisons are given between
the Indonesian and Portuguese periods because “the comparison is, of course,
unfavourable”. There were 463 primary schools in East Timor in 1973 (p. 128).
• Most of the teachers were imported from Indonesia and the Portuguese and Tetum
languages were banned.
• The priorities of the education system were skewed. For example, out of a total of
274971 textbooks for use in primary schools, “no less than 200670 were devoted
to Bahasa Indonesia. Only 9292 dealt with the sciences” (p. 129).
This assessment by Taylor was supported by findings in the 2002 United Nations
Development Report. It conceded that by 1985 almost every village had a primary
school but it also identified major flaws in the system. One was the low quality
of education. There was a poor standard of teaching and schools lacked funds as
well as resources as is to be expected in education systems in post-conflict societies
(O’Donoghue & Clarke, 2013, p. 15). Most of the East Timorese who became teachers
had not progressed beyond fourth grade education. Their pay was meagre and they
often had to seek extra employment. They were, therefore, frequently absent from
school. This discouraged some parents who struggled to enrol their children because
of the costs of fees and uniforms. As a result, approximately 30% of children were not
enrolled in primary schools and this had an effect on enrolment at secondary school.
By 1999, net enrolment “had still only reached 36% at the lower secondary level and
20% at the upper secondary level” (UNDP, 2002, p. 5). Another major problem was
that education was perceived as being used to “Indonesianise” the East Timorese
people (UNDP, 2002, p. 5; Nicolai, 2004, p. 44). Some parents had reservations
about educating their children in a system that represented repression and often was
taught by foreign teachers. Millo & Barnett (2004) indicate that; “education was
seen as forced cooperation with the Indonesian occupation” (p. 727). This resulted
in minimal community involvement and there was little ownership of education
services (Millo & Barnett, 2004). This alienation was a significant problem in a
small state where community links and interpersonal ties were so important.
The consequence of the low rate of enrolment, combined with a high rate of
dropout, was that by 1995 less than half of all males and females aged between
fifteen and nineteen had completed primary school (UNDP, 2002, p. 14). This meant
that half the population was illiterate in the years after Independence although that
rate was a major improvement on the Portuguese period. Also during Indonesian rule,
the education system increased the skills of many East Timorese that allowed them
to obtain employment in Indonesia (they were discouraged from being employed in
East Timor) in factories or low-level government administration that had not been
available to them under the Portuguese.

25
CHAPTER 3

The tertiary sector was less developed than the school system but some gains were
made under the Indonesians. In 1986, a private university was established in Dili
with three faculties: social politics, teacher training, and agriculture. Other tertiary
institutions that were founded included a Health Academy to train nurses and Dili
Polytechnic College with two-year courses in engineering and accountancy. In 1998,
the Dili School of Economics was established, offering courses in accountancy and
management (Pederson & Arneberg, 1999, p. 87). Despite the increase in the number
of tertiary institutions in the late 1980s and 1990s, the level of tertiary education
remained low. Tertiary enrolment remained at 3.8% in 1999 (UNDP, 2002, p. 48).
The University, the most prestigious tertiary institution in the country, suffered from
few resources and out-dated teaching methods. The frequent absence of staff and
students compounded the problem.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND EDUCATION

Although literacy levels had been very low throughout the Portuguese colonial era,
the Catholic Church had provided a considerable part of the education that was
available. Some of the religious orders, such as the Canossians, Dominicans, Jesuits,
and Salesians, had long been established in Timor. In 1738, the Dominicans built the
first seminary in Lifau, and by 1863 the first college was established in Dili (Millo
& Barnett, 2004, p. 725). In 1878, the first Canossian Sisters arrived in East Timor
and focused on the promotion of women and non-formal education (Field, 2008,
p. 8). Subsequently, other educational institutions were established in major towns
by Catholic orders. However, the Church’s achievements in either education or
religion remained limited. By 1937, only around 5% of the population was registered
Christians and the vast majority of East Timorese were illiterate and animist.
Between 1932 and 1968, those educated Timorese of the Jesuit and Dominican
schools, known as letrados, became the Portuguese-speaking elite (Millo & Barnett,
2004, p. 725). Contrastingly, while the letrados received official education, the rural
Timorese received rudimentary education. The teaching style was characterised by
rote learning and a respect for the authority of the clergy as representatives of God
was instilled in the students. Only Portuguese was permitted at the rural Catholic
schools. However, Tetum became the lingua franca through its use by the Catholic
Church in sermons, catechetical texts and dictionaries. It was also widely used by
Church officials and leaders (Millo & Barnett, 2004, pp. 725-726) and was to play a
critical role during the Indonesian occupation.
By 1974, only about 20-30% of the population of East Timor were Catholic
(Kohen, 2000, p. 20). Despite this, most of the leaders of the parties that emerged
in the aftermath of Portuguese colonisation were educated at the Jesuit seminary in
Dare. Indeed, during the colonial era, members of the Catholic clergy were more
closely linked to the Timorese people than members of any other institution under
Portuguese rule. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, normal censorship
laws did not apply to Seara, a Jesuit-run weekly. Its columns addressed important

26
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

issues such as traditional marriage laws, housing problems, and the principles of
education. It dedicated frequent space to the teaching of Tetum, “thus implicitly
criticising the state education system which insisted on the sole use of Portuguese”
(Carey, 1999, p. 80). The leaders who took over in 1975 were home grown and
shared the experience of the strict discipline of the Jesuit priests. They were educated
at the Catholic school in Soibada (Field, 2008, p. 11) and then attended Dare, which
was perched above Dili like an “eagle’s nest” (Cristalis, 2002, p. 32). It was here that
the young scholar who became Bishop Belo and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and
the “recalcitrant teenage rebel”, Xanana Gusmao, were taught Latin, Portuguese and
philosophy by the Jesuit fathers (Cristalis, 2002, p. 32). The seminary at Dare was
the only higher education institution in East Timor at the time and it educated the
male children of the local elite. The seminary was still educating a small group of
students in the 1990s under Indonesian rule.
As noted in the previous chapter, during the Indonesian occupation, all Timorese
were required to profess one of the recognised faiths of the state: Islam, Protestantism,
Catholicism, Buddhism or Hinduism. They adopted Catholicism en masse because
of the Church’s long history on the island and its solidarity with the people during
the occupation. The number of Catholics rose from 20% to 30% in 1973 to more
than 81% in 1989 and 90% by 1994 (Millo & Barnett, 2004, p. 727; Taylor-Leech,
2009, p. 42). Part of this solidarity was reinforced by the Church’s maintaining
its education system through a network of colégios. The colégios were centres
containing a parish church, a convent, a boarding school, and a plot of agricultural
land (Carey, 1999, p. 84). The network of colégios cared for the wives, widows,
children and orphans of resistance fighters. It played a role in maintaining some
knowledge of Portuguese language and customs and offered the younger Timorese
generation, who were denied access to such knowledge in Indonesian schools, a
“unique cultural space” (Carey, 1999, p. 84).
Despite retaining their independence under Indonesian rule, Catholic schools
received no financial assistance from the Indonesian government. They survived
through small donations by external Catholic development agencies, which were
channelled through social organisations based in Indonesia (Taylor, 1999, p. 128).
These difficulties were accentuated by the disparate treatment of East Timorese
teachers who worked in Indonesian schools and those who taught at Catholic
schools. The wages of teachers who worked in Indonesian-run schools were
approximately triple that of their Catholic counterparts (Taylor, 1999, p. 128).
Catholic schools continued to use Tetum as the language of instruction during
the Indonesian occupation. According to Carey, this was one of the ways that the
Church contributed to, and sustained, East Timorese nationalism. Carey cites the
“pivotal” decision taken by the Catholic hierarchy in 1981 to adopt Tetum, rather
than Bahasa Indonesia, as the local lingua franca for Church services and liturgy
when the Indonesian authorities banned Portuguese. The decision was endorsed by
the Vatican and “raised Tetum from being a mere local language in parts of East

27
CHAPTER 3

Timor to becoming … the language of ‘East Timorese’ religion and identity” (Carey,
1999, p. 85).

THE REFERENDUM AND ITS AFTERMATH

As already outlined in the previous chapter, in 1999, East Timorese voters rejected the
offer of autonomy within Indonesia and chose independence. The result unleashed
an explosion of violence by Indonesian troops and pro-Indonesian militias. Sources
differ on the exact percentage of infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed, but
there is agreement that it was substantial. The new nation was very much in the
position of being a post-conflict state where much of its infrastructure had been
damaged by warfare. In relation to the education sector, most sources concur that
over 85% of school buildings were destroyed (Steele, 2002, p. 77). Some sources
elevate the percentage to 90% (Dodd, 2000; UNICEF, 2001; UNESCO, 2003) and
others claim that “95% of schools and other education institutions were destroyed”
(Earnest et al., 2008, p. 80; Hill, 2005, p. 103; Nicolai, 2004, p. 30; Beck & Araujo,
2013, p. 165). When the pro-Indonesian militias began their rampage, they ensured
that maximum damage was inflicted by filling the classrooms of Dili’s secondary
schools with drums of fuel and torching them. This left Timor-Leste without an
effective secondary education system, because most of the 140 secondary schools
had been destroyed (Dodd, 2000).
The destruction of schools and other educational infrastructure was complemented
by the mass exodus and displacement of teachers in Timor-Leste. Approximately
80% of secondary school and 20% of primary school teachers were from Indonesia.
In addition, most of the staff in the Department of Education as well as the training
institutes were Indonesian. These all left Timor-Leste during the violence and did
not return (Dodd, 2000; UNDP, 2002, pp. 14-15; UNESCO, 2003). Although the
majority of primary school teachers were Timorese, most were displaced, for various
reasons, in the weeks following the referendum. At that time, the vast majority of
teachers under Indonesian rule had been males, but from 1999 onwards, women
began to step into the void created by the loss of so many teachers.
In the immediate aftermath of the ballot, the Church stood by the Timorese
population, but it paid a great price for its stance. The militias targeted the clergy
and religious. In the town of Suai, for example, three priests were killed in early
September (Kohen, 2000, p. 20). Nine church workers, including two nuns and three
seminarians, were murdered near the town of Laga (Kohen, 2000, p. 20). Despite
this, the Catholic Church remained committed to the development of education in
Timor-Leste. The first schools to be re-established after the violence were Catholic
ones. These schools were popular “because they started with a clear programme and
good staffing compared to state schools” (Field, 2008, p. 16).
After the destruction, Timor-Leste began the arduous and slow process of
rebuilding its education system anew. Establishing the right education system was
crucial to its future as a young nation. Research by the United Nations’ Committee

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 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and others, has identified a number of
attributes, which will here be referred to as the “5 As”, in relation to States ensuring
the right to education:
• Availability: functioning educational institutions and programmes need to be
available in sufficient quantity;
• Accessibility: educational institutions and programmes must be accessible to
everyone physically, geographically and via modern technology;
• Affordability: primary, secondary, and higher education must be affordable to all
without discrimination;
• Acceptability: the form and substance of education have to be relevant, culturally
appropriate and of good quality;
• Adaptability: education must be flexible and responsive to culture and needs
as they exist and change (UN Economic and Social Council, 1999; Butcher,
Benjamin, Sidoti, Steel, & Casey, 2011, pp. 170-171).
When these attributes are taken into account, a better education system could
be created that would enhance Timor-Leste’s capacity to innovate and improve
social capital and development. However, Timor-Leste faced a number of major
challenges in rebuilding its education system that was typical of a small state in a
post-conflict situation. These included the need to establish new schools following
the widespread destruction, train new teachers as well as upgrade qualifications of
those who had remained, develop new and appropriate curriculum, and deal with
the language conundrum. All this needed to be achieved against a backdrop of the
limited resources available in the new nation.

RECONSTRUCTION: DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW EDUCATION SYSTEM

Even before the referendum was held, a conference on Strategic Development

Planning for an Independent East Timor was held in April 1999 in Melbourne by
CNRT. During the conference, education was recognised as a central component of
the strategic plan for nation building. The meeting recognised that:
Education is a key sector in the transformation of the East Timorese society
and economy. The schooling system and non-formal educational opportunities
must be responsible and flexible to meet the needs of other departments and
projects, and promote equity and participation (Millo & Barnett, 2004, p. 730).
The plan called for nothing less than the transformation of the teaching-learning
process and the overhaul of the curriculum. Some of its goals included:
• Emphasis on the quality of the teaching and learning process;
• Promotion of the development and quality of the history and culture of Timor-
Leste;
• Reintroduction of Portuguese from grade 1;

29
CHAPTER 3

• Redevelopment of a national curriculum that would include history and geography

of Timor-Leste;
• Training of teachers in order to fill the vacuum left by the departure of Indonesian
teachers and offer permanency of employment (Nicolai, 2004, pp. 48-49; Beck,
2008a, p. 5).
This transformative educational plan was never fully implemented because of the
violence that followed the popular consultation in September 1999 but reflected the
thinking of many in leadership at the time.
After the establishment of UNTAET in October 1999, a Joint Assessment Mission
(JAM) was set up by the World Bank to gather accurate information on the extent of
damage to schools and assess the requirements needed to re-establish the education
system. One of the most pressing needs identified during the assessment period
related to the availability of professionally trained teachers (Nicolai, 2004, p. 73). At
the same time, the World Bank established the Trust Fund for East Timor. The Fund
mobilised money and resources to set up the Emergency School Recovery Project
(ESRP). ESRP’s role was, among other things, to rehabilitate damaged schools,
supply textbooks and furniture for schools, and recruit teachers (Earnest et al., 2008,
p. 80; Hill, 2005, p.103). During the emergency phase, from November 1999 to
June 2000, CNRT also established a Department of Education, and district education
officers assisted UNICEF and UNTAET in collecting data about the number of
schools that were functioning and distributing school supplies (Earnest et al., 2008,
p. 80).
Despite UNTAET’s and the World Bank’s vital work in the education sector
during this period, they avoided curriculum reform, one of the most vital issues to the
development of education in Timor-Leste. Admittedly, as is attested to by numerous
sources on education in states emerging from conflict, curriculum development and
reform can be one of the most challenging aspects faced by these societies (World
Bank, 2005; Rose & Greeley, 2006; UNICEF, 2010). Designing curriculum reform
is important because it is a mechanism for building peace, instilling core values,
and promoting good citizenship. Moreover, curriculum reform contributes to state
building and needs to involve various stakeholders, including local authorities and
teachers (Rose & Greeley, 2006, p. 9). UNTAET’s abdication of responsibility
for reforming the curriculum in Timor-Leste, therefore, meant that the Indonesian
curriculum and Indonesian educational system continued to be used. Consequently,
Millo & Barnett (2004) have argued that there was a missed opportunity to implement
“a more profound transformation of education” that was called for by the Timorese
(p. 722). The key reason for this lack of action appears to have been that UNTAET
and the World Bank believed that they lacked legitimacy as radical agents of change.
After the transition period, when Timor-Leste gained full independence in 2002,
UNICEF and the World Bank worked together to develop a programme to get all
students back to school. By then, 240000 students were attending schools, almost
6000 teachers were recruited at all levels, and over one million textbooks had been

30
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

distributed to schools (East Timor, 2002). Although numerous damaged schools

were repaired and reopened and teachers were recruited, schools still lacked basic
teaching resources (Beck, 2006, p. 147). Even if and when resources were developed,
teachers needed to be trained to use the resources effectively in their teaching. As
Quinn (2005) pointed out, “Since teachers have not had the luxury of using charts,
workbooks, cards and other teaching aids, the challenge will be not only to provide
resources, but also the knowledge of which aids actually assist teachers to teach” (p.
113).
Once the new government gained power in May 2002, it formulated a number
of education policies to strengthen the education system. It formed the National
Development Plan which enunciated a number of key goals. These were:
• Easier access to education for all, and the establishment of at least one primary
school in each village;
• Better quality of teaching and learning;
• Higher school completion and retention rates;
• Development of school curricula, particularly for technical training, relevant to
the conditions and needs of Timor-Leste; and
• Reintroduction of Portuguese and Tetum in schools (MECYS, 2005, p. 10).
In October 2003, the National Education Congress composed of teachers,
headmasters, parents and other stakeholders, met and put forward recommendations
that formed the basis of the National Education Policy. The school system was
stratified into six years of primary, three years of lower secondary and three years of
upper secondary education (Earnest et al., 2008, p. 85). After extensive consultation
with stakeholders in 2004, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports
developed the Education Policy Framework, which outlined the vision, mission,
guiding principles, and strategic priorities to be pursued in the medium term
(MECYS, 2005, p. 11). The Ministry identified and adopted some key objectives
and programme priorities for the period 2004-2008. These included action to:
• Establish an appropriate policy, legal and regulatory framework for the education
sector;
• Promote universal quality primary education;
• Hasten the effective re-introduction of Portuguese and the introduction of Tetum
in schools; and
• Rationalize the provision of tertiary education (MECYS, 2005, p. 18).
The intention of these education policies was to provide directions for sustainable
improvements in service delivery and quality of education.
The Education Base Law of 2008 subsequently set out the strategic plan for
the development of basic education for children from the Early Childhood sector
through to the Higher Education sector in Timor-Leste. It prescribed the minimum
standards for the people of Timor-Leste and the way in which education was to be
organised in both the public and private areas. It aimed to give:

31
CHAPTER 3

all citizens the right and the equality of opportunities regarding education
and professional training, access to the higher levels of education, scientific
investigation and artistic creation, in addition to the right to cultural creation
and enjoyment, as well as the right to preserve, defend and valorise cultural
legacy (p. 1).
With sweeping reforms to the 2005 Education Base Law, which was discarded
following the election of a new government, there have been huge changes in the
way in which education is being provided in Timor-Leste. Some of the changes
relate to organisation of schools, teacher training and professional development,
accreditation for the Higher Education sector, the establishment of an inspectorate
for primary, pre-secondary and secondary schools, and the decentralisation of the
Ministry of Education into four regions.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

As previously noted, it was the Catholic Church, without due acknowledgement

or support by the UN and the transitional government, which had first reopened
schools during the emergency period and began to organise classes (Earnest et al.,
2008, p. 81). By 2005, the Church operated one in eight primary schools across
the country. Furthermore, Catholic schools comprised about a quarter of junior
secondary schools and a third of senior secondary schools (MECYS, 2005, p. 4).
After 2002, religious orders also multiplied in Timor-Leste. By 2008, there were
thirty female and nine male religious congregations working there (Field, 2008,
p.8). For congregations that focused on education, the emphasis was on education
for employment, with a thrust for vocational education. The heavy involvement of
Church organisations is consistent with international development studies (Thomas,
2004; Nolan, 2005; Deneulin & Bano, 2009) that indicate faith-based organisations
contribute significantly to the development of post-conflict states.
The work of the religious orders in education was instrumental in training
young people for employment. For example, the Jesuits operated the San José
school in Balide, and the Canossian sisters managed eleven colleges, including
nine boarding houses for students. In addition, the Salesian Missions led the way
in community-driven educational planning. Their focus was upon mobilising
grassroots participation in educational planning rather than waiting for the state to
bring about the change (Pillay & Elliott, 2005, p. 91). Furthermore, the Canossians
and Salesians focused on vocational training for young people. The Canossian
sisters supported young women in traditional handicrafts and hospitality training
through vocational training centres (Field, 2008, p. 17). Through the Mary
MacKillop East Timor Mission, the Sisters of St Joseph are among the very few
groups that produced literacy material in Tetum. The congregation, working in
Timor-Leste since 1994, produces books and quality resources for primary schools
(Taylor-Leech, 2009, pp. 21-22).

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 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

A report by Annette Field for Caritas Australia indicated that the Parliamentary
Majority Alliance in Timor-Leste, which came to power in August 2007, “made it
clear that there is a role for the churches as partners with government in developing
the country” (Field, 2008, p. 6). However, there has sometimes been tension between
the Church and the State since independence, as the Church tries to redefine its role
and purpose in an independent Timor-Leste and the government, in turn, has sought
to increase its role in education. An example of this occurred in March 2005 when
the Church organised a demonstration to protest against the government’s proposal
to omit Religious Education from the curriculum of state primary schools and make
it optional rather than compulsory. The demonstrations lasted for four weeks and
exacerbated Church-government relations (Field, 2008, p. 36).

PRIMARY EDUCATION

A large number of primary school teachers that still remained in Timor-Leste

after the violence worked as volunteers, at times receiving small payments from
UNICEF and at other times some food from the World Food Programme. Most of
the existing primary school teachers had only completed lower-secondary education
and continued to upper-secondary schools during the Indonesian occupation (UNDP,
2002, p. 52). Furthermore, during the transition phase, teachers were still relying
on the traditional method of rote learning to teach children rather than encouraging
more active learning (UNDP, 2002, p. 5). Clearly, more teachers and better teacher
training were needed because, as O’Donoghue and Clarke (2013) argue, “no country
has reached sustained economic growth without achieving near universal primary
education” and conflict has usually been a major obstacle to achieving universal
primary education (p. 13). UNICEF was one of the major stakeholders that operated
in this domain. While UNTAET and the World Bank focused on reviving the
education system, UNICEF concentrated on childhood care, training for primary
school teachers and curriculum development. It also provided basic teaching and
learning material for primary school teachers and supported a programme to foster
child-centred teaching as well as training teachers to work with children with special
needs (UNICEF, 2001).
Nevertheless, one of the major problems facing the primary education sector
during the transition period was the relatively small number of teachers. The ratio
of students to teachers in 2001 was 60 to 1 (UNDP, 2002, p. 6). When one considers
that under two thirds of children who are of primary school age were attending
school in 2002, the lowest in the East Asia/Pacific region (UNICEF, 2005), this ratio
becomes even more significant. Such a high ratio meant that the quality of education
for individual students was reduced. By 2003, however, progress was being made
and the ratio of students to teachers dropped to 45 to 1 (Taylor-Leech, 2009, p. 49).
Partly due to the uncertainties of the transition period, there were few attempts
at curriculum development, and this compounded the problem of quality education.

33
CHAPTER 3

At primary level, the Indonesian curriculum was largely retained. Grades 1 and 2
had standard Portuguese books that covered the early primary programme. On the
contrary, the other primary grades had a limited curriculum of mathematics and
science for years 4 and 5, with Portuguese as a second language, and mathematics,
science and social science for years 3 and 6 (UNDP, 2002, p. 53). In the years after
the transition period, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) committed
itself to the development of a new national curriculum for all primary school grades
and approved a Strategic Plan for Universal Primary Completion by 2015. In
June 2005, the Primary Curriculum Implementation Plan was approved. The new
Timorese Primary Curriculum was to be phased in from grade 1 in 2005 to grade
6 by 2010/2011. By 2008, the government also decided that schooling would be
compulsory to Year 9 and that Years 7 to 9 would comprise a junior, essentially
Middle School, while secondary schools would be focussed upon Years 10-12 (Beck
& Araujo, 2013, p. 163).
Despite the emphasis on improving the primary school system, it remained
fragile. In 2013, it was estimated that only half of all school-aged children completed
primary school. In addition, the repetition rate is as high as 16%. According to the
United Nations Development Assistance Framework 2009-2013, such a high rate of
repetition indicates the need “for strengthened promotion of mother tongue-based
learning” (UN, 2009, p. 19).

SECONDARY EDUCATION

After the referendum in 1999, more than three-quarters of secondary school teachers,
who were Indonesian, fled Timor-Leste never to return. Staffing of senior secondary
schools has been particularly difficult because it had been heavily dependent on
Indonesian teachers and their departure was not followed by large-scale recruitment.
There was an attempt to remedy the problem during the transition period, but the
majority of secondary school teachers at that time were still university students who
had not received any teacher training at all. Of the 2091 secondary school teachers
for the 2000/01 school year, for example, only 106 had formal teacher training
(UNDP, 2002, p. 52). The result was that secondary school teachers complained
about their lack of training in pedagogy, maintaining discipline in the classroom,
and the transfer of knowledge. Consequently, teachers resorted to using forceful
disciplinary measures and this contributed progressively to the increasing levels of
student absenteeism (Millo & Barnett, 2004, p. 731). Nevertheless, from January
2000, teachers started to be paid from the UNTAET-administered Combined Funds
for Timor-Leste (Supit, 2008, p. 14). Since that time the number of secondary
teachers has increased and changes to the school system meant that senior schools
now focus upon Years 10-12 and generally there are two types of high schools. The
general secondary prepares student for further professional education while the
technical secondary prepares those who are entering the labour market at the end of
their schooling.

34
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

TERTIARY EDUCATION

During the assessment period, JAM judged partnerships with international universities
to be of critical importance for the tertiary sector, particularly in supporting and
training students. It also recommended that “accelerated teacher training be instituted
to train volunteers, graduate students and others who will fulfil the immediate need
for teachers” (Nicolai, 2004, p. 74). Conversely, the UNDP report that was published
in 2002 urged caution. The report recommended that the tertiary sector, and the
National University of Timor-Leste in particular, consider offering quality education
to a smaller cohort of students rather than offering numerous courses to larger, but
overcrowded and poorly qualified cohorts (UNDP, 2002, p. 54). Nevertheless, the
report echoed JAM’s recommendation that the National University focus most of
its resources on developing its faculty of education because teacher training was a
priority if Timor-Leste was to rebuild itself (UNDP, 2002, p. 54). In March 2003,
La’o Hamutuk, a local journal reporting on social and cultural issues in Timor-Leste,
published an overview of higher education in the country. It reported that of the
fourteen tertiary institutions then in the country, most were in a ‘worrisome’ situation
with few resources, uncertain funding and lack of qualified staff (Higher Education
in East Timor, 2003).
The National University of Timor-Leste reopened in November 2000 and
recommenced education courses for secondary schools. By October 2001, it had
some 5000 enrolments and promoted the work of the agriculture, technology,
economics, education and political science faculties and supported the development
of Tetum (East Timor, 2002). However, besides the Catholic Teachers College in
Baucau, there were no tertiary education institutions that offered primary teacher
training, although the government had a professional development unit to help
those teaching in primary schools. It is within this context that the partnership was
established at Baucau that will be discussed at length in the next chapter. There
was, and still is, a serious lack of tertiary institutions that provide professional skills
and training in Timor-Leste. Some undergraduate scholarships allow studies in
such countries as Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand and a small percentage of
students are undergoing their tertiary studies in Cuba and Indonesia. However, there
remains limited opportunity to advance to tertiary studies for most young people in
Timor-Leste. The improving high school system does allow 15000 to 20000 students
to graduate each year, but in 2013 only 2000-3000 of these students then went onto
higher education.

THE LANGUAGE CONUNDRUM

One of the most difficult predicaments faced by the Timorese after the vote for
independence was the issue of language. The people of Timor-Leste already faced
a great challenge in dealing with the multiplicity of languages in their country.
Between them, they spoke some thirty different local languages. To aggravate the

35
CHAPTER 3

problem, the government decided to enshrine Portuguese, along with Tetum, the
local lingua franca, into the constitution as the official language of Timor-Leste.
Even though Beck (2006) has logically explained that Bahasa Indonesia could not
be adopted as a national language because “it is linked to a period of oppression” (p.
147), not everyone subscribes to that viewpoint. Steele (2002), for example, argued
that UNTAET must bear responsibility for this situation because it permitted Xanana
Gusmao and Fretilin to institute Portuguese when only 5% of the population spoke
it (p. 80). Taylor-Leech (2005), on the other hand, has approached the issue from
a different perspective altogether. She has argued that the promotion of multiple
languages in Timor-Leste will protect multilingualism “by allowing space for all
languages in the system and that a model of additive multilingualism offers the best
chance of an inclusive and accommodating language policy” (p. 116).
In terms of the development of education after the violence, the government
introduced Portuguese progressively as the language of instruction, beginning with
grades 1 and 2. In 2001, some 500 Portuguese teachers arrived in Timor-Leste to
assist language development in primary schools among teachers and pupils while
500 Timorese primary teachers were sent to Portugal for language study. However,
as Quinn (2007) has pointed out, these measures all ran contrary to both UNESCO
and World Bank policies, which advocated that students have the right to begin
schooling in the “first language”, the mother tongue (p. 252). Furthermore, the
2001 Household Survey found that while 82% of people spoke Tetum and 43%
could speak Bahasa Indonesia, only 5% could speak Portuguese. While a mere
2% spoke English (UNDP, 2002, p. 3), there was a desire to learn this language.
Among the other local languages, Mambae is spoken by 25%, Makasae by 10%,
with Kemak and Bunak being spoken by about 10% of the population. The fact that
only a minute number of teachers spoke Portuguese contributed to the shortage of
teachers during the transition period. This was somewhat offset by the assistance
provided by Portugal to Timor-Leste in the education sector. Portugal gave priority
to primary and secondary education by sending Portuguese teachers to Timor-Leste
and training East Timorese teachers. It also assisted in providing textbooks to grades
1 and 2 at the ratio of one book to six students as well as rebuilding the infrastructure
in the tertiary sector (Portuguese Support, 2002).
In the plans for reconstruction of Timor-Leste, the government brought in a team
of curriculum developers from Brazil to develop the first truly Timorese curriculum,
which was then moderated by Portuguese curriculum planners. The plan was to build
up national curriculum from pre-school to senior high school, one level at a time. By
2008, the curriculum was up to the pre-secondary level, with some subjects already
being taught in Portuguese. The lack of materials for teaching meant that teachers
were using Indonesian text books, translating content into Portuguese or Tetum for
use in the schools – not an easy proposition. The problem of language has presented
difficulties in adopting change. There is no common language, for example, that
can be used to teach teachers. This has created confusion among teachers. In theory,
Portuguese and Tetum were to be used as languages of instruction. However, Beck

36
 TIMOR-LESTE: AN EDUCATIONAL OVERVIEW

and Araujo (2013) point out that, in reality, teachers use various languages to assist
students to learn, including Portuguese, Tetum, Bahasa Indonesia, and the local
language. As one Timorese teacher explained:
We use two languages in grade six …In grade four we use three languages…
In grade three we use three languages as well: local language, Portuguese
and Tetum…This is because we don’t know exactly what language to use…
Firstly, we try to find a way or a method to use so that the children can quickly
understand the concepts. Secondly, we are also being told in the workshops or
training to use other languages such as the local language or dialect to help the
children (Quinn, 2005, p. 114).
Pragmatically, teachers made choices that reflected the goals of the curricula and their
language. As late as 2008, teachers still did not have the capacity to teach in Portuguese
and many educators used a mixture of Tetum and Bahasa Indonesia to teach (Earnest
et al., 2008, p. 83). In addition, parents and students who do not speak Portuguese and
are, therefore, unable to understand school procedures and communicate with staff,
face marginalisation (MoEC, 2005, p. 12). In 2005, the Ministry of Education accepted
Tetum as the medium of instruction in the first two grades of school following some
intense debate over the issue of early literacy in a child’s first language.
It must be pointed out that there are advantages to a bilingual education system.
Children who grow up in a multilingual environment from an early age are more
likely to be literate. Students who are bilingual have a more complex vocabulary
than monolingual children and have the ability to use language as a cognitive tool.
Nyland (2004) argues that “The earlier a child is exposed to other languages, the
easier they are to learn” (p. 54). Either way, the language conundrum in Timor-Leste
is not likely to be resolved any time soon and teachers will likely continue to use
various languages in instruction in educational establishments. This will only add to
the uncertainty that already exists in the education system of a country that is still
trying to stand on its own two feet.

CONCLUSION

For some five hundred years, the East Timorese were colonised, invaded, and
disenfranchised from the political and educational processes of their own country.
Although a small minority was educated under Portuguese colonial rule, this was to
serve the Portuguese interests rather than to build the capacity of the East Timorese.
Under Indonesian rule, the East Timorese maintained a tradition of resistance,
even to education, in trying to resist a system which was set up by the invaders to
‘Indonesianise’ the local population. Rather than the people being at the centre of
the education process before 1999, it was imposed upon them. Even though UNDP
(2002) has described education as “one of the most critical components of human
development” (p. 47), prior to independence, education served the interests of the
political powers of the day.

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CHAPTER 3

After Timor-Leste gained independence, education had the potential, for the
first time, to be given to the Timorese by the Timorese, but there was only limited
capacity to deliver it. After the 1999 referendum, the government and the Catholic
Church both began the task of rebuilding in order to provide education for the nation.
The Church formed partnerships with religious orders and external bodies to provide
not only vocational education to assist young people in gaining employment, but
also professional education to form future teachers. It was in this context that ICFP
was established by a partnership of the diocese of Baucau, the Marist Brothers, and
Australian Catholic University. ICFP provided crucial professional education in
filling a critical gap in Timor-Leste’s education system. The next chapter will cover
the history of this partnership.

38
 PART II
COMMITTING TO THE PARTNERSHIP
 CHAPTER 4

HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

The co-operative partnership described in this book resulted in the formation of ICFP
Baucau, and promoted educational capacity building in Timor-Leste in the post-
referendum period. Creating a partnership that would focus on educational capacity
building in Timor-Leste in the aftermath of the referendum, therefore, was crucial
in the rehabilitation of the small country. This chapter presents the history of the
partnership, and forms the basis for subsequent chapters that analyse and evaluate
the collective roles of the partners and the ways in which they worked together to
establish ICFP as an expression of their commitment to the people of Timor-Leste.

ORIGINS OF THE PARTNERSHIP

In 1999, events in different parts of the world would lead to the creation of an
educational partnership between the Marist Brothers and the Diocese of Baucau. The
major event was the successful vote for independence in 1999 that left the Timorese
in charge of their country but with a devastated infrastructure, leaving educational
institutions in need of reconstruction. World sympathy was focussed on Timor-Leste
in the months after August as the Indonesians left a path of destruction as a result of
their rejection by the East Timorese people.
The second event in 1999 was the canonisation in Rome of Marcellin Champagnat,
founder of the Marist Brothers. This was of great significance in the history of
the Brothers and, to mark the occasion, the General Council commissioned every
Province of the worldwide Congregation to start a new project in honour of the
event. The Provincial of the Melbourne Province of the Marist Brothers at that time,
Brother Jim Jolley, visited Timor-Leste soon after the referendum of 30 August. He
met with the two bishops, Dom Carlos Belo of Dili and Dom Basilio do Nascimento
of Baucau, and made an offer for the Brothers to work in the country in educational
projects. Bishop Basilio accepted the offer as he had strong links with the Marist
Brothers in Portugal and also knew of the Order’s work in France and in Mexico. He
invited the Brothers to be involved in two projects in his Diocese. The first would be
to establish and operate a primary teacher education college in Baucau and the second
would be to establish a secondary school for mainstream and vocational education
in the township of Laclubar, a remote rural town in the District of Manatuto. The
teacher training project flourished but, due to local circumstances, the school project
was not realised.
The contribution of the Marist Brothers to the partnership was through their
charism, leadership and credibility over a long history of involvement in education,

41
CHAPTER 4

and in the worldwide operation of schools and colleges at primary, secondary and
tertiary levels. The commitment to the vision, mission and sustainability of ICFP at
the level of Province Leaders has continued from that of Brother Jim Jolley, through
Brother Paul Gilchrist and Brother Julian Casey to Brother Jeff Crowe, current
leader of the new Province of Australia. The Marist Brothers had the resources of
personnel and experience to undertake the task and to appoint suitably qualified and
skilled Brothers who possessed entrepreneurial flair and resourcefulness. They were
also able to draw upon broad professional and religious networks for advice and
support. This gave every indication that they would be able to cope with the varying
circumstances and challenges that would emerge as the project developed.
Clearly, Bishop Basilio had a significant role to play in the establishment of the
partnership, and his presence and his contributions were vital to its success. Born in
Suai in 1950, he had been ordained in 1977 and spent twenty years in Portugal and
France before returning to East Timor in 1994 and then becoming bishop of Baucau
in 1997. In 1999, Xanama Gusmao publicly thanked the Bishop for the support that
he and the Church had given in the struggle for independence from the Indonesians.
The Bishop possessed considerable national prestige that went beyond his Episcopal
office. As a result, his moral support and his influence could open many doors in Dili
and provide access to authorities and resources. In conversations and negotiations
with government and other authorities, the question was frequently asked: ‘What
does the bishop think about this?’ A positive response often provided a breakthrough
in these talks. Such a position was in contrast to many NGOs that operated in Timor-
Leste at the time that were not as well placed in gaining access to or dealing with
government authorities.
Bishop Basilio had given priority to establishing suitable infrastructure for the
operation of the Diocese and to the San Jose Catholic Education Foundation, located
in the town of Baucau, which co-ordinated the diocesan education system. However,
despite his interest in education, the demands upon the Bishop were time consuming.
Between 2002 and 2004, he would have additional administrative responsibilities
for the Diocese of Dili following the resignation of Bishop Belo and before the
appointment of his successor. Therefore, the establishment of the teachers’ college
was entrusted to the Marist Brother who created the Catholic Teachers College
(CTC) at Baucau in 2001.
Situated 122 km east of Dili, Baucau is the second-largest district in Timor-
Leste with a population of around 104000. The town of Baucau, with about 16000
inhabitants, is situated 512 metres above sea level and enjoys a more moderate
temperature than most of the surrounding district. Bishop Basilio was conscious in
1999 that the centre of government, including education and all other services for
the new country, was located in Dili, and that the majority of post-independence
development and reconstruction was taking place in the capital. This correlates with
the literature for post-conflict and small nations, which suggests that one of the
challenges is to create equal opportunities in education for students, particularly for
those living in rural and remote areas (Bacchus, 2008). However, Baucau was closer

42
 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

to the geographical centre of the new nation than the capital and the proposal to set
up and provide the initial management of a teacher-training facility was of course
an initiative of the Diocese of Baucau (Van Rooij, 2011, p. 31). This meant that the
Bishop was in the position to provide support and local access to land, property,
resources and personnel without reference to Dili. The project could then overcome
another problem common to many post-conflict states, where the government tends
to centralise power and deny any real voice to its local areas.
As well, such an educational institution would have economic and social benefits
for the people of Baucau and provide opportunities and resources for the professional
development of the College staff and teachers in local schools. Although many
schools were badly damaged or destroyed during 1999, the district had the potential
to become an important educational centre. By 2012, it had 72 primary schools,
15 junior secondary schools, three secondary schools and two vocational schools,
with a total student population of nearly 26000 and 700 teachers (Direcção Nacional
Estatistica [DNE], 2011). However, over time, experience has shown that Baucau
as a site did present significant challenges, because Dili has remained the centre for
Ministry activities, meetings and communications. The distance from Baucau to Dili
has meant that each return trip for staff can be expensive in terms of fuel, overnight
accommodation and time.

The Arrival of the Marist Brothers

After the confirmation of their offer to contribute to educational capacity building

in Timor-Leste, the Marist Brothers began preparing for the establishment of a
community of Brothers to start the project. The Provincial gained congregational
support for this mission, describing it in terms of an international project open to
Marist Provinces in other parts of the world. As the Melbourne Province was already
highly committed to many projects within Australia and overseas, further help was
sought from other Provinces to enable the East Timorese project to proceed. The
Province of Portugal offered one of their Brothers, Irmão Manuel da Silva. Because
Timor-Leste was previously a Portuguese colony, this appointment was seen as a
positive act and added language expertise to the enterprise.
The first group of Brothers arrived in Timor-Leste on 1 September 2000. Prior
to this, however, a number of resources had been brought in on the Australian ship
HMAS Jervis Bay that was making regular trips to Timor-Leste from Darwin,
bringing in cargoes of relief supplies. Brother Mark Paul accepted the challenge
of establishing the new community of Brothers and laying the foundations of the
proposed teachers college. He was an experienced educator at primary, secondary
and tertiary levels and had extensive involvement in social justice projects in
Australia with marginalised young people. Also, he was a person with vision and
commitment and the ability to tap into existing networks for professional growth
and capacity building. Joining him on the project were Brother Michael Herry
who would work in the area of music within the College and the parish; Brother

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CHAPTER 4

Canute Sheehan who was the equipment support person; Brother Irmão Manuel da
Silva who taught Portuguese; and Brother Stephen Bugg who performed in-service
English. These Brothers rented a house in Baucau and this has continued to be the
community residence to the present day.
Jose Mendes, the first Timorese professional staff member to be employed,
was to assist the Brothers. It was important to have a local who was familiar with
government and local administration, was fluent in the local languages as well as
English, and was well-connected within the community. Jose provided credibility
and advice in negotiations with government, community and partners regarding the
establishment of the College.

CASEPET

Brother Mark began his educational endeavours with a grant of US$60000 he had
received from ‘lobbying’ the Bishop as well as a small space within the Diocesan
complex in Baucau as a base for his activities. The Marist Brothers soon had an
important leadership role when Caritas Sweden resumed its Educational Project for
East Timor (CASEPET) for the provision of professional development of teachers
with the Catholic education foundations of the Dioceses of Dili and Baucau. Brother
Mark became the Co-ordinator of this Caritas project after the resignation of the
initial coordinator. The involvement of other Marist Brothers and volunteers from
Australia in CASEPET until 2006 contributed significantly to the sustainability,
effectiveness and credibility of the project and to the status of the new College in the
eyes of the different stakeholders. The review of this project by staff of ACU provided
opportunities for the partners to collaborate in teacher professional development and
research with Catholic Church organisations nationally and internationally and with
staff of the Ministry of Education in the government of Timor-Leste.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CATHOLIC TEACHERS COLLEGE AND ICFP

History

The campus of Catholic Teachers College was established in the Old Town of
Baucau near the Markets and Cathedral, using both church land and other buildings
that were available for rent. There were problems with complicated land titles and
government regulations. While leases and buildings have changed over the years,
the institution has essentially remained within the same general area in which it was
originally established.
When the College was first established, it had three rooms for teaching and a
building for administration, and was given access to other rooms in the nearby
Salesian community as needed. By 2003, the College had a teaching and learning
centre with a capacity for 100 students, an administration block, residences and
offices for thirty staff and a resource centre. Planning was also underway for an IT

44
 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

centre, literacy, music and student services centres, a science laboratory and more
teaching space. Although the majority of these premises were rented, they were
renovated to make them suitable for the operation of the College. At this stage, CTC
received financial support for up to six years from the European Union, Caritas
Sweden, Misereor Germany, Swedish Mission Council, National Catholic Education
Commission of Australia and the Marist Brothers of Australia.

Professional Development

In order to establish an educational profile in Timor-Leste, the College began by

conducting in-service training for small groups of teachers in general subject areas
in 2002. The initial professional development offerings were provided by volunteer
teachers from Catholic Education Offices in Australia and included the offering
of English and Portuguese to teachers across the district of Baucau. Brother Mark
rented a house in Baucau for these volunteer teachers.
The need for a professional teaching body was great, and CTC could only provide
a limited amount of nation-wide professional development, depending on the funding
by agencies supporting the College. Initially, it provided short-term courses to meet
the pressing need of training existing teachers in the areas of Physics, Languages
and School Leadership and Teaching and Classroom Management. Physics was
chosen because there was a suitably qualified US volunteer teacher at the College,
Curt Gabrielson, who was very keen to lead this project and published a teacher’s
handbook in the subject in Tetum. This handbook has since been widely used
throughout Timor-Leste. Brenda Keenan, a volunteer from the Sandhurst Diocese
in Victoria, Australia, brought essential management capacity to the College with
respect to its own internal operation as well as to the management of its professional
development offerings.
Despite the professional needs of teachers, there were difficulties in the
implementation of suitable development activities. A major problem was the
government requirement for the introduction of compulsory Portuguese language
classes for all teachers. The time demands of these classes made it difficult to expand
the range of the professional development courses. Another difficulty was that in
order to participate in this training, many teachers were out of school for up to three
days a week, or for three or four afternoons a week. To alleviate these problems, the
College sent its staff to various centres throughout the country to offer professional
development. This was an example of CTC’s early commitment to teacher training
across all regions of the country.
Despite these problems, the professional development activities further raised
the profile of the College and it quickly became recognised in the educational
community as a credible provider of quality in-service programmes. Its next step was
to move towards developing a nationally accredited and internationally recognised
teacher-training course. To develop such courses and provide curriculum structures
and quality assurance processes in the academic programme, Australian Catholic

45
CHAPTER 4

University was invited to join the partnership. CTC’s name was then changed to
Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores (ICFP) as part of the move to
further reflect Portuguese as the official language.

PARTNERSHIP WITH AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

History

In 2002, Brother Mark had sought the assistance of staff from Australian Catholic
University to act in a consultancy role for a review of the CASEPET project.
Professor Jude Butcher, the Head of the School of Education (NSW) and Professor
Tony d’Arbon from the School of Educational Leadership assumed responsibility
for the review with the assistance of a colleague, Professor Mark McFadden. The
review, completed mid-year, documented the impact of the programme and it was a
one-off initiative. Having established this link, the Brothers then enlisted the support
of ACU to be the underwriter of courses that would be developed and offered by the
CTC. ACU would assist in establishing quality assurance processes and providing
academic oversight for a Certificate of Teaching and Learning and a three-year
primary education course that would commence in October 2003.
The Certificate of Teaching and Learning, a four-unit course, was made available
through ACU for teachers without formal qualifications with only a nominal fee
being charged to the students. However, this revenue could be retained by CTC/
ICFP as ACU granted use of the Certificate at no cost. CTC/ICFP offered this course
that was taught by trainers employed by Children in Crisis, a London-based Non-
Government Organisation. By 2013, more than 400 teachers had graduated with
the Certificate, and they had come from the Catholic sector, government sector,
vocational training centres and early childhood centres. It remains an important
component of the Institute’s professional training for existing teachers.
In the early 2000s, there was no tertiary institution in the country that offered
training for primary school teachers. Some aspiring teachers were fortunate enough
to be sent to Indonesia for a two-year Diploma course. Within Timor-Leste, UNTL
provided a secondary teacher education course, but for most primary school
teachers, the only available teacher training was a parallel senior high school
course that included some basic training. At first, it was proposed to follow the
Indonesian model of a two year Diploma but after further discussion with ACU and
the Ministry of Education, it was decided to introduce a three-year degree course,
based upon the ACU model. This agreement with ACU meant that in 2003, ICFP
was in a position to offer a three-year undergraduate degree programme for primary
school teachers. The Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course was based upon the
University’s primary teacher education course for Australian Indigenous students,
with the units on Indigenous history and culture being replaced by units on history
and cultures of Timor-Leste. It would be the first degree course for primary teaching
in Timor-Leste.

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 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

ACU brought to the partnership a commitment to quality in teaching, research

and community engagement and an ability to make specific contributions through
curriculum development, course accreditation and quality assurance. The involvement
of qualified personnel from within Timor-Leste and Australia to conduct the course
provided the students with confidence that the awards were of quality and value and
negotiable in the wider national and international academic communities

Creation of the Vision Statement

Prior to the commencement of the degree course, ICFP set up a Steering Committee
that was facilitated by Professors Jude Butcher and Tony d’Arbon to advise it on
matters of policy and direction. The Committee was made up of representatives from
religious congregations or orders and produced a Vision Statement that would focus
and guide the future development of the institution. This ensured that the emphasis
in the statement would be Catholic and would uphold those values espoused by
the Christian community. This Vision Statement was drawn up in three languages
– Portuguese, Tetum and English – so that all who read it could understand it. The
English translation of the statement was subsequently modified and read as follows:
The Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores, with the people of East
Timor, is committed to developing quality, professional teachers through a
holistic approach and in the context of the Catholic faith and the culture of
East Timor.
The Institute is also committed to being a lighthouse for advancing quality East
Timorese curriculum and education with the people, Church and country. It is
committed to advancing a culture of leadership in the country.
The Institute respects people from different faith traditions and cultures.
Graduates are to be scholars and capable practitioners who are committed
to teaching as a life-long vocation. They would be good citizens who are
committed to spiritual and ethical values. (ICFP, 2006, p. 5)
The Vision Statement expressed a commitment to a holistic approach to teacher
education within the context of a faith-based curriculum and the culture of Timor-
Leste. Its approach was both inclusive, based upon respect for the people from
different faith traditions and cultures, and focused on the development of good
citizens who are committed to spiritual and ethical values. The emphasis in the
vision statement on ‘in the country’ meant that ICFP had a goal of drawing student
teachers from the thirteen districts and providing graduates for the whole country,
rather than just the Baucau District.

ACU Capacity Support

The partnership between ICFP and ACU developed from the professional collaboration
that had previously existed between Brother Mark Paul and Professors Jude Butcher

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and Tony d’Arbon as well as Professor Gabrielle McMullen, ACU’s Deputy Vice-
Chancellor (Academic) and Professor Judith Chapman, Dean of Education at that
time. ACU covered all costs for the quality assessment and quality assurance of
the courses as well as organising the waiving of the customary enrolment and
administrative costs for the students. The University also endorsed and facilitated
the secondment of Ms. Margie Beck, a lecturer from the Faculty of Education at
ACU, to the College.
Margie Beck was well suited for her role in the Institute, being responsible for
overseeing the academic quality of the course and course rules and regulations,
and for developing the student administration system. ACU supported her in
developing these procedures and systems by making available its resources,
policies and procedures. She had extensive professional experience with her long
teaching experience as a classroom teacher and as a member of staff of ACU and
its predecessor Colleges. Furthermore, she had been effective in establishing
professional learning partnerships between ACU and schools in Sydney and had
taught ACU’s Certificate of Religious Education to teachers in Papua New Guinea.
Her understanding of the quality assurance processes of ACU proved invaluable
when assisting with the strategy in preparing the Institute for the submission for
national accreditation. She first came to Baucau in 2002 offering a professional
development course on teaching skills to teachers. She was then invited to return
in 2003 as Coordinator of the Bachelor of Teaching course and later became
Deputy Director of ICFP.
Her commitment to the people of Baucau and ICFP was evident in a special way
in her:
refusing to leave East Timor during recent civil unrest. She believes that by
staying, a message of hope was being portrayed rather than one of despair that
her leaving might have projected. (d’Arbon, 2006)
Jude Butcher also continued his links with the partnership through being the
principal officer for the University to liaise with ICFP and to ensure that its capacity
building was a sustained priority on the part of ACU. He reported on the partnership
and ACU matters to the Vice-Chancellor, the Provost, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Academic), and the Dean of the Faculty of Education. Professor Butcher also
included information related to ICFP graduations and related ICFP matters in his
reports to ACU’s Academic Board when appropriate. Professor Tony d’Arbon
continued to play a key role in establishing important links and acted as bridge
between the University and the Marist Brothers.
The coming together and blending of these interests and capacities of the partners
in the new Institute developed a tertiary institution with an ability to produce qualified
teachers. The graduates would “be highly competent in their chosen fields, ethical in
their behaviour, with a developed critical habit of mind, an appreciation of the sacred
in life, and a commitment to serving the common good” as envisaged in the Mission

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 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

statement of ACU (1998). In addition, this initiative was distinctive because it was
an open-ended commitment rather than one defined by budget or even time.

Memoranda of Understanding

The Memoranda of Understanding and the various agreements between the partners
partially helped to define the partnership. On 16 November 2003, the Bishop, ACU’s
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Sheehan and Brother Mark Paul on behalf of the
ICFP, signed the first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to foster co-operation
between the two institutions. A further agreement formalising the secondment of
Margie Beck from ACU to ICFP was also signed. The MOU contained a strong
vision for the nation that was shared by all the partners. Professor Sheehan said:
“Education is at the heart of nation building and will lay the foundations for the
future peace and prosperity of East Timor” (East Timor and Indonesia Action
Network [ETAN], 2004).
At the same ceremony, the Bishop and the Provincial of the Marist Brothers,
Brother Paul Gilchrist, signed a separate agreement that set out to show a foundational
and sustained commitment to the educational enterprise and the ongoing presence of
the Brothers in the Institute.
Subsequent MOUs reflected the growth of the partnership and the partners’
solidarity in action. This joint commitment was articulated further in the 2008
MOU that stated: “The relationship between ACU and ICFP is one of historical
significance, grounded in their shared commitment to Catholic education and social
justice” (ACU & ICFP, 2008, p. 1). The signing of this second MOU signified the
consolidation of this ongoing relationship. ACU and ICFP renewed the MOU on 10
February 2012 for the academic years 2012 to 2015. This MOU was subsequently
revised in light of later changes relating to the national educational policy of Timor-
Leste that impacted on the employment of graduates. This resulted in the University
handing over the intellectual property of ACU courses to ICFP. The MOUs expressed
a joint and ongoing commitment to quality teacher education, quality assurance,
staff capacity building, research and community engagement.
Important as the MOUs were in their expression of the interdependence of the
partnership, they were, in one sense, only paper documents. At no stage have the
Marist Brothers and ACU ever signed any formal agreement over their roles in the
partnership even though they continue to work together on a common mission.

ACU Staff Commitment

The University’s academic and professional units and staff have embraced ACU’s
commitment to the Institute and the partnership. Successive Vice-Chancellors,
Professor Peter Sheehan and Professor Greg Craven, have endorsed ICFP as a
priority for the University’s contribution to the mission of the Church in new or

49
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developing nations. The Faculty of Education, through the Dean, Professor Marie
Emmitt, agreed to ACU’s Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) and Certificate of Teaching
and Learning being offered at ICFP and to the secondment of Margie Beck. ACU’s
Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course provided the structure and substance for that
course as offered by ICFP and validated by the University. Other senior staff at
ACU also offered advice to ICFP in terms of staff development, student enrolment
and administration and library infrastructure. In 2003, Dr Ann Gervasoni from the
Faculty of Education offered a professional development course in Mathematics
Education for the academic staff of ICFP. Jim Graham, a senior member of staff
from ACU Library, visited in 2004 and completed a review of the Institute’s library
facilities. He also developed with ICFP a strategic plan for using the library facilities
and advised on seeking funding for the library.

COURSE DEVELOPMENT

The Bachelor of Teaching (Primary)

The initial primary teaching course comprised thirty-eight units spread over three
years. These units were structured in Curriculum Studies, Education Studies,
Teaching Studies, Language Studies, (including Portuguese Language) and East
Timor Studies that included a unit on the history of East Timor and another on
Citizenship and Ethics as well as a separate unit on Tetum and Cultural Studies.
Three of the units were in Field Experience where students undertook practice
teaching in schools or went on morning weekly visits to schools – all totally new
concepts in Timor–Leste at the time. A mixture of Timorese and expatriate staff,
mainly Australian, were employed to teach this course.
By 2006, the first students were approaching their graduation in the primary
programme at ICFP. As part of ACU’s commitment to the course, it agreed to enrol
these students retrospectively as ACU Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) students,
thus ensuring they graduated with an international qualification. This retrospective
enrolment of students had to be negotiated with and endorsed by the Australian
government’s accrediting authority. This commitment was also evident in the visit
by Marie Emmitt and Jude Butcher to the Institute in November 2006, when the
internal civil unrest was still taking place in Timor-Leste. Later, despite the unrest,
they travelled to Baucau by chartered plane ‒ road travel being considered too
risky ‒ for the graduation of the first cohort of Bachelor of Teaching (Primary)
graduates.
In 2008, the scheduled five-year ACU course review, conducted by an
international panel in collaboration with ICFP, resulted in a structure through which
the students now graduated with three awards: a Bachelor of Teaching, a Certificate
of Liberal Studies and a Certificate of Religious Education. This set of courses gave
due acknowledgement to the major areas of study – primary teacher education,
Portuguese Language and Religious Education. It also reflected the decision of the

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 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

Timor-Leste government to make schooling compulsory to the end of Year 9, which

is discussed later in this chapter.

Staff Development

Initially many of the Timorese academic staff had only limited awareness of course
development and Margie Beck’s role was to induct them in the use of the unit outlines
that were needed as they set out the basics such as unit objectives, content and
assessment policies. They also needed assistance in the use of PowerPoint (provided
the power supply did not fail) and other teaching aids as well as an orientation away
from using rote learning to a more student-centred learning approach. However, within
a short period of time, certainly by the end of the second semester of the course, all of
these requirements were quickly adapted within the Institute’s teaching culture.
ICFP policy also advocated that academic staff not only be ideally drawn from
Timor-Leste, but lecturers possess at least a Master-level qualification. However,
ICFP itself did not offer any postgraduate qualifications. The pattern was soon
established for Timorese academic staff to be employed as tutors and then given the
opportunity, in terms of time and learning support from Australian staff, to study
for a Master’s course through ACU. Further discussion of this staff development is
covered in the next chapter.

A New Director

In late 2006, Brother Fons van Rooij succeeded Brother Mark Paul as Director.
Brother Fons had a long experience in education and a strong background in school
leadership and project management. He had an international background, an extensive
knowledge of languages and an awareness of the varied political contexts in which
the Institute had to operate. He was well suited to consolidate and then expand ICFP
from its early foundations. Since his appointment, he has overseen the growth and
professional development of staff, encouraged their academic studies and raised
their professional status through postgraduate courses. Brother Fons also increased
the resource base and infrastructure of ICFP, particularly in the area of Portuguese
teaching, learning and the provision of quality resource materials for the library. In
2011, he initiated the development of plans for a four-storey building, incorporating
classrooms, staff and administration offices, library, and maintenance workshops.
The construction of this new building, which is the largest and most modern in
Baucau, commenced with finance made available through international funding
bodies. The purpose of this building is to consolidate the various departments and
resources of the current Institute. Its size and scope are symbolic of the confidence of
the partners in the future of the enterprise. Brother Fons was integral to the transition
of ICFP from its very credible initial development led by Brother Mark Paul until
2006 to its subsequent sustainability and international status acknowledged by
external accrediting bodies in 2011 and 2012.

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Course Changes

Over time, the Timor-Leste government has sought to exercise more control in
‘owning’ the country’s education system. Each new government has changed
education policies after being elected. When the Government restructured the
education system in 2008 to make schooling compulsory to the end of Year 9, ICFP
responded by changing the name of its degree from Bachelor of Teaching (Primary)
to Bachelor of Teaching (Ensino Basico). This was done to ensure that students
would graduate with a degree that matched the requirements of the government. The
Institute believed that, with its own course changes, the graduates would have the
skills and pedagogy necessary to teach in the third cycle of basic schooling (Years
7-9), and curriculum documents to support their teaching. In fact, by that time, some
of the third-year students were already completing their final practicum in these
schools rather than in the primary sector.
A more significant impact of government policy was when it stipulated that
higher education institutions should be nationally accredited with graduates
receiving the award of that institution. Thus, in 2012, no undergraduate students
at ICFP could be registered with ACU. Third-year students who completed their
studies at the end of 2012 graduated with a Bachelor of Teaching awarded by
ICFP rather than by ACU. This government decision had significant implications
for ICFP and the role of ACU in the partnership (República Democrática
de Timor-Leste, 2009). The transition of course status in 2012, when ICFP
assumed sole responsibility for course accreditation, course delivery and student
accreditation was a significant point in the partnership. ACU passed over to ICFP
the intellectual property for all the courses that the Institute now offered and
acknowledged in formal transcripts the units studied and completed by each of the
current students. These government changes meant that graduating students did
not receive international recognition for their degrees since they were no longer
associated with nor accredited by ACU. This issue remains unresolved at the time
of writing. However, all of these changes did not end ACU’s partnership with
the Institute and the University has remained committed to education capacity
building in the future.

CONCLUSION

The emergence of the newly independent nation of Timor-Leste following the

referendum of 1999 provided great challenges and opportunities for the growth and
development of infrastructure and local resources. Local and international bodies
with special interests and resources in domains such as education sought to establish
solid and lasting partnerships for capacity building in the areas of their expertise.
In terms of capacity building in education, the establishment of an institution for
the preparation of primary teachers utilised the goodwill, influence, finance and
expertise of the Church, government, business, religious and educational leaders

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 HISTORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP

in Timor-Leste and internationally. The partners that established ICFP were

wholeheartedly committed to the project.
The partnership has grown because of the ongoing commitment of all parties
to the people and Church of Timor-Leste through the provision of quality teacher
education. The progress of the partnership from 2001 to 2012 has varied according
to political and security circumstances but throughout, the partners were determined
to act in unison and ensure the success of the project by utilising their capacities
and resources. The partnership has embodied an awareness that what was required
would vary over time and an acknowledgment that the questions to be addressed
would at times be unpredictable. However, it also resolved that underneath it all, the
partners’ commitment was flexible in terms of time and scope. It is these aspects of
the partnership that will now be examined in the next chapter.

53
Figure 1. Burnt-out Junior High School, Laclubar December 1999

Figure 2. Marketplace near ICFP in Baucau

Figure 3. Bishop Basilio do Nascimento and Professor Peter Sheehan signing the MOU

Figure 4. Opening ceremony of ICFP October 2003

Figure 5. Margie Beck with ICFP graduates

Figure 6. ICFP students in classroom

Figure 7. Marcellin Champagnat Creche on the campus

Figure 8. Student-teacher on practicum

 Figure 9. Primary school children

Figure 10. First graduation cohort 2006

 Figure 11. President Jose Ramos Horta with ICFP staff in 2006

Figure 12. Paddy Kenneally, Australian war veteran and Rufino Silva, his companion
and guide from World War II
Figure 13. ICFP Staff at Graduation 2012 with ACU Dean of Education

Figure 14. ICFP and ACU staff at International Educational Leadership

Conference 2013
 Figure 15. New ICFP building

Figure 16. Farmacia (clinic) - healthy communities, Baucau

 CHAPTER 5

SCOPE OF THE PARTNERSHIP

As seen in the previous chapter, the partners were involved in establishing a

new educational enterprise in Timor-Leste and developing new capacities and
opportunities by working together with a shared vision. This project has grown
significantly since the commencement of the partnership. In this chapter, aspects of
the scope of the partnership at ICFP are presented in terms of students and graduates,
quality assurance of the course and staffing and capacity building. This chapter
examines how the partnership has expanded to include other initiatives.

ICFP

The scope of the partnership can be viewed in the work of ICFP and particularly
through the selection and graduation of its students, in the development of academic
quality assurance that enhances the integrity of the Institute and in its providing
professional development and capacity building for its Timorese staff

The Selection and Support of Students

The emphasis, from the beginning of the primary teacher education programme at
ICFP, was to be upon drawing students from the whole country, rather than from
the Baucau district, in order to overcome regional disadvantages. This included the
Oecusse district, some eighty kilometres from the continuous part of Timor-Leste
and surrounded by Indonesian West Timor. The second emphasis was to implement a
selection process that could be seen by the community as fair. It would also eliminate
any hints of possible favouritism that could easily take place in a highly personalised
society such as Timor-Leste. Margie Beck took responsibility for the implementation
of these selection processes that have been followed to the present day. However, this
was done in consultation with an advisory committee composed of school principals
from Baucau and a representative from the Ministry of Education. She also had
the support of local staff members who assisted with the establishment of student
administration and advised her on a wide range of Timorese customs in order that
she did not create a system that was out of alignment with local feelings.
In order to publicise the Institute’s new course, aside from advertisements in the
Timor Post newspaper, two staff members spent over a week covering all of the
country delivering publicity packages, brochures and application forms to senior
high schools and parish priests and then they returned three weeks later to collect
the completed applications. All 120 applicants were then invited to centres (Baucau,

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Dili and Maubere) to sit for an examination and be interviewed by panels of school
principals and teachers. To overcome any selection bias, all interviewers undertook
a training morning and then, despite the inconvenience of travel, Dili interviewers
were sent to Baucau, while Baucau interviewers travelled to Dili and Maubere.
Students were then made offers to come to the Institute based upon these procedures.
Since that time, the processes have been refined and the Directors have been able to
point to them as the way students gain entry to the Institute whenever phone calls or
approaches were made to try to gain special consideration for an applicant.
In the first years of ICFP, the Student Services Department, were responsible
for the pastoral care of the students. Its two staff took responsibility for all student
needs, including spiritual and financial matters, and also advising them on their
accommodation if they did not come from Baucau. They were attentive to the
students’ transition into Institute life and formal study and also (for the majority of
students) their transition from life in a village to life in a much larger town such as
Baucau. Subsequently, the Deputy Director and the appropriate administrative staff
undertook these pastoral responsibilities. Each year, students in financial need were
able to access scholarships for their tuition and living costs. By 2013, nearly half of
the students at ICFP received some scholarship assistance usually funded from donors
abroad, especially in Australia. Of course, ICFP can only do so much. Its students
are selected from those who finish high school, and while it has attempted to cover
the whole nation, it is still drawing upon the smaller number of students who have
completed high school while many Timorese barely finish their primary education.
Since 2003, ICFP has continued to enrol around 50 full-time students a year
with an average of 47 graduating each year since 2006 (See Table 5.1). This intake
number has been considered all that the Institute could manage given its resources,
even though the demand for student places has remained high and Timor–Leste
needs more trained teachers. ICFP resisted the move to bring in larger numbers of
students because it could not fairly resource them and it was considered that the
course and Institute would be strained by such a move. The introduction of teacher
education courses by other institutions or organisations in Timor-Leste has eased this
pressure, and by 2012 there was a reduced number of student applications. However,
in 2013 there was a small increase again in the number of applicants for the course.
Ensuring equal opportunities for both genders was one of the concepts designed to
promote and increase the quality of education in Timor-Leste (Beck & Araujo, 2013,
p. 164). The concept was implemented by ICFP. The gender balance of students
that enrolled at ICFP changed from 2003/4 to 2013. The number of males enrolled
in the first years far exceeded the number of females. Over the years, the number of
female students increased and surpassed the number of enrolled males. So much so,
that in 2012, there were 14 male and 37 female students enrolled and in 2013, 15
males and 42 females were enrolled. A number of the students who enrolled in 2013
subsequently took leave for various reasons. This changing gender balance was in
keeping with national trends as more women have been entering primary teaching
since the collapse of the Indonesian school system.

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Table 5.1. Student and graduate numbers

Year Number of Number of Number of
Applicants commencing students graduates

2003/4 224 53 –
2004/5 640 50 –
2005/6 453 50 –
2006/7 260 50 43
2007/8 640 46 49
2008/9 177 48 48
2010 268 55 45
2011 245 63 42
2012 121 51 49
2013 130 51 49
Total 3158 517 325

Graduate Employability

An important measure of the progress and scope of the partnership has been in the
employability of the graduates. Those who received employment as teachers could
apply modern teaching methods, new skills, expertise and initiative in a nation
where teacher training is often limited. As this news spread, the number of students
from each graduating class who received direct offers of employment in government
and Catholic schools increased. An ICFP staff member has reported that students
who had completed their studies at ICFP had become models of teaching and
learning in the classroom and were exercising a leadership role in local education
(A. M. Freitas, personal communication, July 19, 2013). In 2012, the Ministry of
Education approached the Third Year graduates with an offer to provide placements
in the Escolas Referencia – one school in each of the five districts throughout the
country designed to be ‘lighthouse’ institutions specialising in teaching using the
Portuguese language. After an entrance exam and interviews, 42 ICFP students
from the 49 finalists, and seven ICFP graduates from previous years were given a
teaching position for one year in these schools, with the commitment to a permanent
contract the following year. Apart from ICFP, Universidade Nacional Timor-Leste
(UNTL) was the only other tertiary institution from which graduates were chosen
for this programme. Since then, a further eleven former graduates have been
employed in the Escolas Referencia. Outside of these schools, however, graduates
have obtained employment in both Catholic and government schools across the
country and sometimes in other government non-teaching roles. The employability
of all graduates is also a reflection of the value of the course, the capacity and

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quality of the staff and the Institute’s ongoing quality assurance monitoring as well
as its staffing capacities.

Quality Assurance

From the beginning of the ACU designed courses being offered at ICFP, formal
attention was always given to the most appropriate structures, policies and
procedures to ensure the quality and credibility of the courses. Building on the initial
teacher professional development focus at the school and village levels in 2001, the
partnership was able to offer the Certificate of Teaching and Learning in 2002 and
the Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) in 2003. Both were conducted in partnership
with ACU. The curriculum for both courses was based on courses already being
offered either at ACU itself or in other developing countries. The partners were
able to achieve international recognition for the Bachelor of Teaching (Primary)
course when in 2006 ACU formally adopted the course and had it recognised by the
Australian government’s accreditation agencies.
The quality assurance of the courses initially incorporated ACU’s policies and
procedures that provided the framework for the Institute rather than having to
develop all of the policies on its own. Margie Beck’s role in this process was a
twofold one. She reported back to ACU’s Faculty of Education that was responsible
for carrying through the University’s legislative accountability for quality
assurance of its courses. These included the course accreditation and oversight
plus the submission of ICFP’s annual handbook and report to ACU, and in-country
and internal moderation of course unit structure, content, student assessment and
distribution of grades, and mode of offering. The quality assurance also required
that policies and procedures were in place for student appeals and ‘challenges’.
Student unit evaluations in ICFP were based upon ACU’s unit evaluation item bank
and procedures. Qualified East Timorese from outside ICFP, including Brother
Marçal Lopes and Sister Jacinta Gusmão, were also invited by both ACU and ICFP
to be involved in the in-country external moderation of student assessment as part
of the quality assurance processes.
Margie Beck’s second role was to ensure that these policies were actually
implemented within ICFP and were understood and followed by its staff and
administration. This was done through regular meetings of the teaching staff.
“The teaching staff meets weekly to discuss issues pertaining to the course, and
minutes of these meetings are made by the Deputy Director and copied to the
Director” (ICFP, 2009, p.12). In addition to these weekly staff meetings, there was
a Guideline for Teaching Staff, updated annually, which spelt out the duties and
responsibilities of each academic staff member. The value of this document lies
in the fact that staff were made fully aware of what was expected of them and that
there would be consistency in preparing unit outlines, marking to set criteria and
providing basic information that a new staff member will need in order to become

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familiar with the structure of the Institute. Another facet of quality assurance was
the use of Peer Review, adopted by the Institute in 2010. Teaching staff chose to use
this model of professional review rather than the formal interview system because
they feel more comfortable being assessed by their peers. To date this has proved
extremely successful, with the comments and suggestions reflecting a high degree
of professionalism.
With the legislative changes implemented in 2012, ICFP assumed sole
responsibility for its courses with ACU providing assistance in the area of quality
assurance to Margie Beck, who is now ICFP’s external person for this area. However,
the general policies that had been set down for quality assurance over nearly a decade
have continued and provide the Institute with the foundation for monitoring all of its
future course offerings.

ICFP Staffing and Capacity Building

ICFP’s policy advocated that academic staff for its teacher education course
were ideally to be from Timor-Leste, with lecturers having at least a Master-level
qualification. Given the limited number of local people who had such academic
qualifications or tertiary experience, the Institute had the task of educational
capacity building not only of its students but initially its staff as well. The usual
pattern was for Timorese academic staff to be first employed as tutors, over time
these were often ICFP’s own graduates, who then had the opportunity to master
teaching in a tertiary environment. The local staff could teach the students, using
their own experiences as a basis for examples and illustrations of the concepts being
taught. Initially however, many of the more senior academic staff were expatriates.
Over time, more qualified Timorese were appointed to lecturer and tutor positions as
well as to the administrative staff. An example of this consolidation and confidence
building is that a Timorese lecturer, Aurea Tilman, after two years of working
weekly with an Australian lecturer in two teaching units – Biblical Studies and
History of Timor-Leste – assumed the role of lecturer-in-charge. She conducted her
own research, including use of Indonesian websites, to augment her knowledge base.
She developed the confidence and capacity to take on leadership in a way that would
have been impossible to imagine eight years earlier, when she had enrolled in the
first intake of primary students of the Institute.
At the same time, ICFP and its partners were committed to the professional
development of all staff of the Institute to make them aware of their new roles
in a tertiary culture. This focus was addressed through ACU staff, volunteers
from Catholic Education offices, and members, staff and associates of the Marist
Brothers. The processes included Timorese academic staff visiting institutions
in Australia and Australian personnel offering professional development and
mentoring in Baucau. Activities included Portuguese, language classes, lecturing,
tutoring and teaching skills, and curriculum development. In addition, staff

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development opportunities were provided to the administrative support staff in their

professional growth. Two members have completed courses through Queensland
TAFE ‒ one in child-care and the other in office management. Another completed
a Certificate Four course in Teaching and Assessment at TAFE that was offered
in Dili. All of these activities contributed to staff professional confidence and
institutional capacity building.
Academic staff members were also expected to improve their qualifications. At
least four undertook units at Charles Darwin University (CDU) with three eventually
graduating from ACU while the fourth completed his studies at CDU. However, the usual
pattern has been for most staff to enrol in the ACU Master of Education programme.
ACU’s commitment to this staff institutional capacity building was an integral part of
the partnership and was the basis for the offering of Master of Educational Leadership
and then the Master of Education to the staff of ICFP. ACU began offering the Master
of Education from 2008 and continues to do so (see Table 5.2). Professor Peter Sheehan
established a fund for covering 50 per cent of the students’ fees. The total funding of
this staff capacity building has subsequently been addressed through AusAID and other
grants. The number of academic staff studying the Master of Education, graduating and
then staying with ICFP for at least 12 months is presented below.
Table 5.2. Staff enrolled in postgraduate courses
Year Number of Number of Number who were
M Ed students students members of ICFP 12
enrolled graduating months later

2008 6 11 1
2009 9
2010 10
2011 5 5 3
2012 7 2 1
2013 8 3 3

The gender balance of candidates undertaking and graduating with a Master of

Education is fairly evenly distributed, as can be seen in Table 5.3.
Students usually took three or four years to complete a Master of Education.
Although there were five graduates in 2011, three were still working at ICFP
twelve months later. In 2012, two students graduated with a Master of Education
and one was still at ICFP one year later. The percentage of 2013 graduates who
were members of ICFP twelve months later was one hundred per cent. The figures
in Table 5.2 indicate that the retention of academic staff once they had completed
the Master of Education was a challenge for ICFP. These graduates, with their
tertiary qualifications plus teaching and administrative experience, are much sought
after in other sectors of the country. They usually find more financially attractive

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 SCOPE OF THE PARTNERSHIP

Table 5.3. Number of Male and Female Master of Education Graduates

Year Number of M Ed Number of male Number of female
Graduates graduates graduates

2008 1 11
2009
2010
2011 5 3 2
2012 2 2
2013 3 2 1

employment as public servants or with international NGOs and Aurea Tilman,

mentioned earlier, has been one of these staff lost to the Institute in this way. A joint
research project between two of the senior Timorese staff of ICFP and ACU staff
was planned but could not be completed because of the resignation of these staff
from ICFP to take up better job opportunities elsewhere. However, ICFP and its
partners have accepted this and consider these moves to be part of their contribution
to the capacity building of Timor-Leste as a new nation despite the loss of such staff
capacity to the Institute.
In recent years, there has been a shift within Timor-Leste as the United Nations
forces and international consulting companies have increasingly withdrawn from the
country and local authorities and organisations have taken over their responsibilities.
Sometimes this has been an easy transition but in other cases it has left the Timorese
with the challenge of filling the gap. In contrast, ICFP approached the concept of
Timorisation of its staff from the beginning with a long-term capacity building focus
in mind. An example of this has been with Margie Beck who had been in a senior
position as Deputy Director since 2004. The decision was made at the beginning
of the 2012 academic year to appoint a Timorese Coordinator of the Bachelor of
Teaching programme as the Deputy Director ‘in training’. The Australian Deputy
Director worked on a daily basis with her Timorese colleague, designing a work
manual, a calendar of when key events take place in the Institute, and the role that
he must take, building up lines of communication between student administration
staff and himself, and having regular meetings to explain and mentor his progress. At
the beginning of 2013, the Timorese Deputy Director took up the role with minimal
supervision and guidance. This has been a process of confidence building as well as
skills building, because the Timorese staff member is academically qualified, and
has had other work placements that have helped to prepare him for this position. By
2014, the overwhelming majority of the staff of ICFP is Timorese, some twenty-
seven in number. At the time of writing, there were only three expatriates on staff,
all Australians including two volunteers and the Director who is a Marist Brother.

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Despite such changes, there have been other ways in which the partnership has
continued and broadened its scope.

BROADENING THE SCOPE OF THE PARTNERSHIP

The partners have broadened the scope of their commitment over the years as new
challenges and opportunities have presented themselves so that they have been
committed to various ongoing activities that have gone well beyond the scope of the
original aims of the partnership.

Marist Brothers
At the start of this partnership, there were the five Marist Brothers working within
the then Catholic Teachers College and they focused upon teacher education.
In 2014, the number of Marist Brothers that were involved in ICFP has been
reduced to four, including Brother Fons. Education also continues as a priority
with a focus now being given to supporting the education of young men who,
as aspirants, had indicated their intention to pursue the appropriate formation
for membership of the Congregation. The Brothers, with the endorsement of the
Bishop, have made a commitment to developing Marist Brothers schools within
the Diocese of Baucau.
The Marist Brothers established the Marcellin Champagnat Creche as further
expression of their commitment to the education and wellbeing of people, particularly
children of staff and students of ICFP. The establishment of the San Antonio Clinic
in 2006 and their continuing support of it in partnership with ACU until 2013 were
evidence of their commitment to the health of the people, particularly staff and
students. Funding for this project came from the O’Neill Foundation, a member
of which was working in St Joseph’s College, Hunters Hill in Australia, a Marist
school. In addition to improving the health and wellbeing of students and staff at
ICFP as well as the wider community in Baucau, professional development in health
was also provided to health workers through the clinic.

Australian Catholic University

ACU has extended its commitment to the people and Diocese of Baucau in two
ways. The first has been through the development and implementation of the Future
in Youth programme for the engagement of children and youth in soccer. ACU staff
members, Dr Ross Smith and Dr Paul Callery, developed this programme in 2009 for
implementation in 2010. ACU has continued to offer the programme with the support
of local community organisations, the parishes, schools, and Football Federation
Organisations within Timor-Leste and Australia. Each year ACU Exercise Science
students spend three weeks working in Timor-Leste improving the soccer skills
of young players and coaches. The presence of female ACU students has given

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 SCOPE OF THE PARTNERSHIP

local girls far greater confidence and role models for playing sport and engaging
in exercise than in the past. More than 4300 young people have participated in the
programme across the years to date as well as 225 coaches, 100 of which have
returned from previous years. All participants receive a t-shirt, red cap and water
bottle and are taught about fairness and respect to their opponents, as well as healthy
eating and hygiene. If these lessons seem simple concepts, then previously some
youths did not play soccer because they were afraid of violence on the field. Even
the notion of shaking the hands of opposing players was not commonplace until
introduced during the programme.
A second commitment of ACU has been in supporting the San Antonio clinic,
which in 2014 was renamed Seven Eleven Farmacia. It employed an Australian-
trained Timorese nurse to travel to Baucau for six months and provide professional
development to health professionals in the Baucau district. ACU also provided
financial support to the clinic and subsequently implement the Barefoot Nurses
Train the Trainer programme for village health workers, hospital staff and other key
health professionals in the community. This health education programme, led by
Helen Peters, a registered nurse and Sister Monica Whelan lcm, aims to train health
professionals, particularly village health workers, to act as a first point of contact for
people in their area and to provide basic primary care to those in immediate need.
The programme focuses on the provision of primary health care such as fractures,
burns and cuts, as well as stomach and skin problems, infectious diseases and
immunisation.

CONCLUSION

Evidence of the scope and impact of the partnership between ICFP, the Bishop and
Diocese of Baucau, the Marist Brothers and ACU has been seen in the number and
quality of ICFP students and graduates, the staffing of ICFP by Timorese and in
the status and quality assurance of the courses offered by the Institute. The Marist
Brothers and ACU broadened the scope of their commitment to the people and
Church of Baucau through other major programmes including Marist aspirancy and
formation programmes and ACU’s sport and health programmes. In the next chapter
we will examine the respective roles and responsibilities in the partnership.

NOTE
1
Master of Educational Leadership graduate

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 PART III
TRANSFORMING EDUCATION
 CHAPTER 6

DOMAINS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

IN THE PARTNERSHIP

The previous two chapters have outlined the history and scope of the partnership and
its long-standing development. This chapter employs a two-dimensional framework
of domains and responsibilities to further analyse the workings of this educational
capacity building partnership between ICFP and the Bishop of the Diocese of Baucau,
the Marist Brothers and the Australian Catholic University. Four domains addressing
the institution’s values, the central academic and infrastructure components of the
capacity building, and the long-term sustainability of the institution were chosen for
this analysis. Each of the four broad domains ‒ Foundational Values, Institutional
Deliverables, Institutional Infrastructure and Institutional Sustainability ‒ include
further sub-elements for analysis.
Three categories were also devised for allocating and analysing the responsibilities
of each partner with respect to each element within the four domains. These
categories reported upon a partner’s responsibility in terms of the nature and level of
their accountability, contribution, and support. The three categories were:
• Principal (P): partner has a primary accountability for this area;
• Collaborative (C): partner contributes values, capacity, opportunities, resources
or status; and
• Supportive (S): partner promotes the synergies between what it does and the work
of the partnership.
Analysis of the partnership in terms of domains and responsibilities reveals
the multiple dimensions of the partnership in this educational capacity building
enterprise. The complexities and nuances involved can be inferred from a study of
its overall framework (see Table 6.1) as well as from the accounts of each domain.
It should also be noted that the complexity of the interfacing responsibilities
of the partners was further complicated by their various accountabilities to other
bodies and jurisdictions. In its work within Timor-Leste, ICFP has not only been
responsible to the Bishop, as well as to the Marist Brothers and ACU but importantly
to the government of Timor-Leste. The Marist Brothers have accountabilities to
their Congregation within Australia and internationally, as well as to the Church
as a whole. They also lead ICFP and so the responsibilities of the Order and the
Institute can also overlap. ACU has responsibilities to the higher education sector
and departments established by the Australian government, as well as to its partners
in Timor-Leste. These extra responsibilities therefore add other dimensions to the
workings of this partnership that are noted where relevant in this analysis.

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Table 6.1. Domains and Partner Responsibilities

Domain Partner ICFP Bishop of the Marist ACU
Diocese of Baucau Brothers

Foundational Values

Vision P P C C
Catholic Mission and Identity P P P P
Marist Charism C S P S
Pastoral Care P P P P
Values and Culture of Tertiary P S C P
Education
Institutional Deliverables
Award Courses P C C P
Quality Assurance P S C P
Teacher Professional P S C P
Development
Scholarship and Research P S C P
Community Engagement P P P P
Institutional Infrastructure
Campus Building P P P C
Library P S S C
Information Technology P S S C
Student Administration P S S P
Administrative Systems P S P S
Governance of Institution P P S S
Governance of Course Award P S S P
Institutional Sustainability
Institutional Credibility P P P P
Staff Capacity Building P S C P
Timorisation of ICFP P C C C
Financial and Capital Resources P C C C

FOUNDATIONAL VALUES

Foundational values include the elements of vision, Catholic mission and identity,
Marist charism, pastoral care, and tertiary education values and culture. A shared
commitment to foundational values provided a base from which the four partners, all

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from within the Catholic Church, could negotiate their respective responsibilities, and
the different cultural contexts within which the partnership was to be implemented.
This value base distinguishes this partnership from others that were also involved in
post-conflict nation building in Timor-Leste but were based upon capacity to meet
the task rather than upon shared values.

Vision

All of the partners are committed to the vision of ICFP. The Institute itself has
‘principal’ responsibility for the articulation and pursuit of its vision. However being
a Catholic Institution in the Diocese of Baucau, the Bishop also has a ‘principal’
responsibility for endorsing ICFP’s vision and ensuring that the Institute was faithful
to it. He has given it public support through his addresses and writings, as well as
through his overt support and actions on behalf of the Institute.
ACU has a ‘collaborative’ responsibility for being faithful to ICFP’s Mission
and is attentive to this in all aspects of its work with the Institute. In the early
days of the Institute, prior to the commencement of the course, ACU personnel
assisted in facilitating the articulation of ICFP’s vision statement. ACU, through the
partnership, also brought a value commitment and enhanced status and credibility to
ICFP’s Vision. The University’s Mission Statement expressed a synergy with ICFP’s
original Mission Statement in “. . . a commitment to quality in teaching, research
and service . . . bringing a distinctive spiritual perspective to the common tasks of
education” and seeking “. . . to make a specific contribution to its local, national and
international communities”. All of its endeavours, including its education, research
and community engagement, are “. . . guided by a fundamental concern for justice
and equity, and for the dignity of all human beings” (ACU, 1998).
The Marist Brothers have a collaborative responsibility in the articulation and ‘living
out’ of ICFP’s vision. As sponsors, Directors and permanent staff of ICFP as well as
volunteers that work for shorter periods, the Marist Brothers have brought to ICFP
the richness of the charism of St Marcellin Champagnat and of the Congregation’s
sustained commitment to and credibility in Catholic school and higher education.
The commitment of all four partners to ICFP’s vision provide an important
shared base for their educational capacity building with staff and students and the
Timorisation of ICFP itself. They have been ‘on the same page’ in terms of focus
and priorities while having different areas of attention or responsibility within this
shared educational endeavour.

Catholic Mission and Identity

From the outset, the Bishop provided the Institute with its Catholic identity and authority
by his direct invitation to the Brothers to operate in his Diocese. He saw the Institute as
contributing to the good of the nation through its educational endeavours. Each of the
Institute’s partners, however, has also shared a principal responsibility in this contribution.

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ICFP has been responsible for the ways in which its Catholic identity and mission
were expressed in its planning, policies, operation and everyday life. The Marist
Brothers, with their involvement and extensive experience in Catholic higher
education, have ensured that this educational enterprise in Catholic higher education
was faithful to Catholic mission and identity. ACU with its understanding of the
special nature of a Catholic tertiary institution and the inspiration of 2000 years
of Catholic intellectual tradition enabled it to bring a distinctive perspective to the
common tasks of Catholic higher education.
The partners therefore have brought to this domain their own rich heritage and
expression of Catholic identity, values, history and desire for an outcome that would
contribute to the provision of qualified teachers and highly motivated graduates. A
good example of this mission in action was the commitment to enabling potential
students from across Timor-Leste to apply for the teacher education course. This was
based upon the shared belief that access to education could help overcome Timor-
Leste’s history of disadvantage and exclusion.

Marist Charism

The presence and work of the Marist Brothers expressed the Marist charism that
informed and guided the establishment of the Institute and the Brothers’ ongoing
commitment and presence with the people, in the spirit of their founder, St Marcellin
Champagnat. The charism of the Marist Brothers has been foundational to the
Brothers’ engagement and commitment to capacity building. Their charism-based
presence and work, like that of other religious congregations in Timor-Leste, has
been a basis for the priority given to Timorisation. The ‘charism’ of a religious
congregation is its distinctive spirit or quality. The Marist motto ‘a heart that knows
no bounds’ continues to be foundational to the development and work of the Institute.
The Marist Brothers’ Congregation has principal responsibility for the Marist
Charism. ICFP has a collaborative responsibility since it participates as an institute
of higher education within the Marist Brothers’ Congregation. The Institute
is attentive to how the staff and students of ICFP are offered formation and
educational programmes in terms of the charism and how it relates to a person’s
and an organisation’s thinking, attitudes and practice. The Bishop and ACU have
“supportive” responsibilities. The University brings to the enterprise the synergies
from the Marist congregation as one of the founding congregations of ACU as well
as a member of the Public Company of ACU, and from the Brothers’ continuing
association with the University.

Pastoral Care

Each of the four partners has a principal responsibility for the pastoral care and
wellbeing of the ICFP community. Within their respective jurisdictions, each partner
is responsible and accountable for ensuring that students and staff have been respected

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and receive access to student and staff support services, special consideration in
academic matters, and financial support through scholarships.
Each partner has their special role in this important area and provides a sound
basis for the care of students and staff. The importance of this pastoral care cannot be
overestimated in light of the recent violent history in Timor-Leste and the particular
needs of students coming from distant districts such as Oecusse.

Values and Culture of Tertiary Education

Both ICFP and ACU have had a principal responsibility for the development of the
particular values and culture of tertiary education within the Institute. The original
synergy between the structure, substance and emphases of the ACU and ICFP courses
was important in providing an established academic base for the new Institute’s
tertiary teaching and learning. The welcoming of the students to ICFP and their
orientation to the courses and the requirements of tertiary education focussed their
attention upon the academic nature of their decision to enrol as a tertiary student.
ICFP and ACU were also committed to developing the Institute’s research culture
that reinforced these tertiary values and culture in all its endeavours.
The Diocese has a supportive responsibility, through its provision of basic
infrastructure and commitment to institutional quality and credibility. The Marist
Brothers have a collaborative responsibility ensuring that the Marist Brothers’ appointed
to this mission of the Congregation have suitable qualifications, capacity and status.
The coming together and blending of the commitments and interests of the
partners has produced a quality Catholic tertiary teacher education institution. This
institution focuses upon the education and formation of graduates “committed to
teaching as a life-long vocation” and being “…good citizens…committed to spiritual
and ethical values” (ICFP, 2006, p. 5). These graduates are also to be seen as being
“highly competent in their chosen fields, ethical in their behaviour, with a developed
critical habit of mind, an appreciation of the sacred in life, and a commitment to
serving the common good” (ACU, 1998).

INSTITUTIONAL DELIVERABLES

Institutional deliverables consists of award courses, quality assurance, professional

development, scholarship and research, and community engagement. Award courses
and quality assurance includes the teaching of the courses. Within the initial focus
of the work of the Institute, teaching took the form of professional development of
teachers at school and village levels.

Award Courses

Within the jurisdiction of Timor-Leste ICFP has had the principal responsibility
for the teacher education course offered. However, ACU also shared this principal

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responsibility in originally providing formal academic endorsement, support and

credibility for the academic and professional offerings and awards of the Institute.
Together, ICFP and ACU have delivered an internationally accredited award course
by basing the development of the initial ICFP Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course
on the University’s primary teacher education course for Australian Indigenous
students. The international status of the award was assured through re-accrediting the
course in 2006 as one of the University’s courses and retrospectively registering its
students as ACU students. The principal responsibility of ACU in this area was based
in part upon its higher education accountabilities to the Australian government. The
Bishop of Baucau and the Marist Brothers were the sponsoring Church organisations
with a collaborative responsibility in the establishment and offering of courses
supported by the values and status they brought to this aspect of the enterprise.

Quality Assurance

Both ICFP and ACU have had principal responsibilities for quality assurance. ICFP
had to guarantee its procedures for satisfying the requirements of the Ministry of
Education and Culture in Timor-Leste. ACU had similar responsibilities with respect
to its offering of the Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course off-shore as well as for
the quality of this international community engagement. The University’s academic
oversight and quality assurance procedures were applied in ICFP through the
secondment of Margie Beck along with the short-term availability of other qualified
personnel. This ensured that the awards of the Institute were of quality and value and
negotiable in the wider national and international academic communities.
ACU also determined appropriate people for the moderation of unit assessment in
conjunction with ICFP. In addition, senior staff from ACU met with staff, students,
and members of the wider educational community as a further measure of quality
assurance.
ACU, with ICFP, was committed not only to the provision of quality teacher
education, but also to the granting of internationally recognised qualifications for
the graduates of the course. The graduation ceremonies from 2006 until 2012 were
structured so that all present were aware of the joint endorsement of the teacher
education course by ACU and ICFP.
The Marist Brothers had a collaborative responsibility being kept informed
of quality assurance processes as well as being attentive to the quality of course
offerings and procedures in their own congregational review of ICFP. The Diocese
has a supportive role as it acknowledged the importance of quality courses and
outcomes for ICFP as a growing national tertiary institution.

Teacher Professional Development

Again ICFP and ACU have had principal responsibilities for professional
development of teachers. ICFP made professional development the first component

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of its educational work in the country. ACU shared that responsibility through its
Certificate of Teaching and Learning. The University made this course available to
the Institute for in-country programmes at no cost. The Marist Brothers collaborated
through endorsing professional development as an integral part of the educational
offerings of the Institute. The Bishop was supportive in encouraging a professional
development focus, seeing it as an essential need given the large number of untrained
teachers in the schools after the vote of independence.

Scholarship and Research

ACU took the lead in having principal responsibility in fostering scholarship

and research at ICFP and ensuring that this was included explicitly in the first
Memorandum of Understanding. From the beginning of the partnership both ICFP
and ACU emphasised the integral role of research and community engagement,
with the latter area being a more explicit focus in the third MOU. Margie Beck has
maintained a research focus throughout her first ten years as a seconded member
of staff from ACU, documenting and publishing the development work within
ICFP. She has subsequently continued her research as a volunteer and independent
consultant at ICFP and an Honorary Fellow of ACU.
ICFP has also taken a principal responsibility for operating a centre of research
into developing cultural and social aspects of Timorese life, and is supported in
this work by the German NGO, Misereor. ICFP and ACU have also developed the
research capacity of Institute staff through their study in the Master of Education
with ICFP staff developing confidence to present their insights and knowledge in
academic conferences.
The Marist Brothers have also been supportive of the focus on research, realising
its vital importance in promoting scholarship in ICFP. The Bishop, while being a
signatory to the MOU, did not focus explicitly upon the scholarship and research
dimension of ICFP or upon research by ACU.

Community Engagement

ICFP has a principal responsibility in maintaining a key commitment to engagement

with the communities, agencies, Church and government in Timor-Leste. This
commitment includes Outreach Programmes with the local communities and the
whole Diocese. ICFP’s commitment to engagement and outreach was seen in
its early years through its work for the professional development of teachers in
communities and schools across the nation. During its early years, ICFP also showed
its commitment to the Catholic school system of the Diocese of Baucau by providing
the opportunity in 2004 and again in the following year for “one staff member of the
Catholic Education Office and one local Principal to spend three weeks in Australia
to learn of the management systems that operate in one of the Catholic Education
Offices” (Paul, 2004).

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ICFP’s community engagement has been particularly important in Timor-Leste

because of its inclusiveness in focus and outreach. Cristiano da Costa, former ICFP
lecturer and researcher, commented:
The Institute is one of the few higher education institutions in Timor-Leste that
has been directly and indirectly involved in promoting peace in East Timor.
It dares to venture where few do, to cross borders of gender and tribes, of
political affiliations and class. (C. da Costa, personal communication, 2009)
The Marist Brothers have maintained a principal responsibility in community
engagement through their whole mission to Timor-Leste and ICFP. The extent and
depth of this commitment is seen in their allocation of Brothers to ICFP and the
wider Baucau community, their regular visits to ICFP, their establishment of the San
Antonio Health Clinic and their support of community programmes through Marist
Asia-Pacific Solidarity (MAPS).
The Bishop has also had a principal responsibility in this community engagement.
He invited the Marist Brothers, welcomed ACU and has continued his endorsement
of the roles of the Marist Brothers and ACU throughout this partnership.
ACU’s principal responsibility for community engagement is integral to its
identity and mission as a Catholic university. Its community engagement is based
upon principles of reciprocity in which the partnership between ICFP and ACU
provided a sharing of perspectives and expertise to find new ways forward:
Genuine engagement moves beyond the level of mere service and allows the
opportunity for societal response to help redefine the nature of the problem
itself and perhaps forge new solutions. (Sheehan, 2006, p. 5)
The University’s community engagement is seen in its commitment to engagement of
ACU staff with ICFP, schools and communities and the extension of its community
engagement beyond ICFP to the parishes and wider communities of Timor-Leste.
Two major community engagement commitments by ACU have been in the areas
of health through the Bare Foot Nurses Train the Trainer programme and the
engagement of youth through sport by means of the Future in Youth programme.

INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

The institutional infrastructure domain includes campus buildings, library,

information technology, student administration, administrative systems, and
governance of institution and governance of the award course.

Campus Buildings

ICFP and the Bishop have principal responsibility for the provision of appropriate
campus buildings for teaching, administration, pastoral support, and research and
community engagement. The Marist Brothers have had a principal responsibility

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 DOMAINS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE PARTNERSHIP

regarding plant for ICFP, ensuring that adequate facilities were available for the
mission of the Brothers in ICFP and using their international networks to access
funds for the new building. ACU has had a collaborative responsibility in the form
of status by giving public assurance that the campus buildings used for the teaching
of ACU courses ‘off shore’ met requirements of the Australian government’s higher
education policies. The University has also engaged with groups such as the eMerge
Foundation whose fund raising in Australia has supported the ICFP’s building
project as well as student scholarships.
The priority given to campus buildings and infrastructure, as well as to sound
financial management, has been acknowledged from the early days of ICFP as
contributing to quality teaching and student well-being. The high quality of ICFP’s
facilities has been recognised by the Ministry of Education and Culture and by the
national accrediting body.

Library

The library is a significant resource for learning, and its facilities continue to be
developed for the use of staff and students. Library purchases have been made in
Indonesia, Portugal, Australia, and more recently, in Timor-Leste.
ICFP has the principal responsibility for provision of these facilities and the library
collection while ACU has a collaborative responsibility by assuring that the facility,
infrastructure and provision of resources have met quality standards required for the
offering of its courses. ACU has also been involved in the professional development
of ICFP library staff and in providing advice regarding appropriate systems and
procedures. ACU has provided funding and other support towards the library
collection. The Marist Brothers and the Bishop have had supportive roles in this
area. The outcomes of the commitment to ensuring a substantive library collection
and appropriate services have been seen in the quality of the staff of the library and
the extent of the collection.

Information Technology

ICFP, having principal responsibility for information technology infrastructure, gave

priority to its development. During the early years of ICFP this priority was exercised
in a context of unreliable internet access and town power supplies. Difficulties with
internet access have continued for ICFP and other organisations in Baucau. ACU
also has collaborative responsibility in this area of information technology because
of its accountability to the Australian federal government for infrastructure available
to Master’s students studying its courses. The University offered assistance to ICFP
in this area. ACU’s Institute for Advancing Community Engagement assisted in the
initial establishment, and hosting of ICFP’s website. ACU was not directly involved
in provision of infrastructure or staff capacity building. The Marist Brothers and the
Bishop have a supportive role in this area.

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Student Administration

ICFP and ACU had principal responsibility for student administration. ICFP ensured
that the procedures were implemented according to public (including legislative)
requirements in Timor-Leste. ACU was accountable for the provision of formal
reports to the Australian government that include student enrolment, progression
and graduation data. Systems were provided for students from ICFP to be enrolled
in ACU through direct entry application.
Margie Beck had a substantive role in this joint responsibility through overseeing
course and student administration policies and procedures, contributing to the
capacity building of the professional staff, writing annual reports for ICFP and ACU,
and developing the Handbook. During the establishment of the Institute, Margie
ensured that there were clear and public regulations and procedures for student
administration, and that they were aligned with those of ACU. She also worked
with the Faculty of Education in making the student administration processes more
efficient. Since 2012 ICFP has taken over most of the principal responsibilities
for student administration. The Bishop and the Marist Brothers have always had
supportive responsibility in this area, by requiring formal student administration
systems that are easily managed by students.

Administrative Systems

ICFP and the Marist Brothers have had principal responsibility for the administrative
systems, which include accounting, financial and general administration areas. It has
been important to ICFP that money is properly spent and not wasted. Hence quite
early in its history, financial systems were put in place and accounts were subject to
annual audit. This development was achieved initially through ICFP’s partnership
with the BDO accounting firm in Melbourne, and then with Deloitte after the
merger of these two firms. The auditing of accounts is currently the responsibility
of an accounting firm in Denpasar, Indonesia. The Marist Brothers have had a
principal responsibility in financial oversight, with the help of their financial office
in Melbourne. Rex Cambrey, from the Marist Brothers’ financial office, and Jeff
Knott, from the accounting firms BDO and then Deloitte, worked together in the
establishment and oversight of the financial systems. The Bishop and ACU have
supportive roles in this area. During the first five years of the Institute’s history ACU
worked closely with Jeff Knott, who was principal officer for this area with BDO
and then Deloitte. This rigorous check of finances has been a characteristic of the
Institute throughout its history.

Governance of the Institution

Governance is presented here in terms of the two major areas: governance of the
institution and governance of the course awards. Governance of the institution

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 DOMAINS AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE PARTNERSHIP

includes the four domains of foundational values, institutional deliverables,

infrastructure and sustainability, while governance of the course awards is primarily
concerned with the deliverables of award courses and quality assurance. Governance
of the institution and course awards has currently been addressed through individual
responsibilities because there is no formal governance structure within ICFP.
The Bishop has ultimate authority in governance of the institution. He has principal
responsibility because it is at his invitation that the Brothers lead, manage and
administer the Institute, with responsibilities outlined in the 2003 formal agreement.
While the Bishop is not directly involved in ICFP, he receives regular briefings from
the Director and is kept informed about the activities of the Institute, its plans and
issues it is addressing. As ‘owner’ of the Institute and in his responsibility as Bishop,
he presides over the graduation Mass and ceremony.
ICFP with its primary accountability for institutional governance has principal
responsibility in this area. Decision making authority of the Institute regarding
policy issues resides in the Director, who is advised by an Executive comprising
senior academic and administrative staffs, who are mainly Timorese. The Director
reports, where appropriate, to the Bishop, the Provincial of the Marist Brothers and
relevant authorities at ACU.
The Marist Brothers have a supportive role in institutional governance of ICFP. In
Canon Law, which governs ecclesiastical matters, the presence of the Marist Brothers
in the leadership, management and teaching at ICFP is seen as an ‘assigned’ work of
the Brothers rather than as a ‘proper’ work. The distinction is that the presence and
leadership of the Marist Brothers at the Institute is at the discretion of the Bishop rather
than of their major superiors as part of their ministry. Should the Bishop decide at the
end of the present agreement period to appoint a person other than a Marist Brother
as Director of the Institute, the role of the Marist Brothers as partners would need to
be redefined. ACU has always had a supportive role in the institutional governance
compared to its earlier principal responsibility for governance of courses and awards.

Governance of the Awards

Both ICFP and ACU had principal responsibility for the academic governance of
the Bachelor and Certificate courses and awards from 2003 to 2012. The Senate
of ACU, acting on the recommendation of the Director of ICFP, conferred the
academic awards. Certificates presented on the basis of professional development
programmes were awarded on the authority of the Institute itself. Because of its
principal responsibility for governance of awards, ACU, as reported above, has had
principal responsibility for quality assurance. The Diocese and the Marist Brothers
have had supportive roles in the governance of awards.
Because of new legislative requirements in Timor-Leste, ICFP from 2012 onwards
now has a new form of principal responsibility for the academic governance. This
change in academic structures occurred at the same time as ICFP became a ministry
responsibility of the new Australian Province of the Marist Brothers.

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INSTITUTIONAL SUSTAINABILITY

Institutional sustainability encompasses institutional credibility, staff capacity

building, the Timorisation of ICFP, and financial and capital resources. The future
sustainability of ICFP has always been an important outcome for the partnership.
The sustainability, as well as the development, of ICFP has benefited from the
extent, breadth and depth of the financial and in-kind support that ICFP has received
from partner organisations.

Institutional Credibility

Institutional credibility has been dependent upon the integrity in foundational

values, quality in institutional deliverables, and appropriateness and effectiveness
of institutional infrastructure. The partners had collective principal responsibilities
within each of these domains for institutional credibility and the signing of MOUs
and Statement of Agreements were public testimony to this fact.
The interdependence of the partners’ responsibilities in this area was clear from
the original partnership between the Bishop and the Marist Brothers as outlined
in the Statement of Agreement, from 2003 to 2011, and then renewed until 2015.
This partnership between the Bishop and the Marists has been foundational to the
credibility of ICFP as an institution of Catholic higher education. Similarly ICFP’s
partnership with ACU brought academic rigour to the Institute’s credibility. ICFP,
in having responsibility since 2012 for accrediting its own courses, continues
to draw upon its partnership with ACU to assist with its ongoing institutional
credibility with respect to its award courses in its new national and international
situation.
The institutional credibility of ICFP has importance not only for itself and the
other partners but also for Baucau and the higher education sector in Timor-Leste.
ICFP gives status to the town and communities that host it and its students and
graduates and, in turn their families and villages are proud of the academic and
professional achievements of the Institute. The nation also benefits from having an
Institution that now has international credibility.

Staff Capacity Building

There is a need for more Timorese people with appropriate qualifications and
experience to move into academic and administrative positions. A key priority
of the partnership has been the education of the Timorese people to assume such
roles within ICFP. ICFP has a principal responsibility in this respect. The Institute
is committed to ensure that those who are employed are given opportunities to
improve their own level of education and capacity. ACU also has had a principal
responsibility in this area because it is accountable for the quality of the postgraduate
education course offered to staff.

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Developing the capacity of ICFP staff, therefore, has been an essential component
of the partners’ commitment to quality teacher education for Timor-Leste. As
indicated above, both ICFP and ACU have a principal responsibility in this area,
with the Marist Brothers collaborating in this development. They have done this
by offering Marist Brothers’ capacity to the postgraduate education of staff and by
organising staff visits to Marist Brothers’ schools and facilities in Australia. The
Bishop has a supportive role, endorsing the importance of staff capacity development
for the future of ICFP.

Timorisation of ICFP

ICFP has a principal responsibility for the policy of Timorisation with the Bishop,
the Marist Brothers and ACU having collaborative responsibilities. Timorisation
involves ICFP becoming a truly Timorese Institute, expressing its own national
culture, encouraging leadership by the Timorese people, and finding culturally
appropriate ways forward in the capacity building of the organisation and its
contribution to Church and national capacity building. This process of Timorisation
of the Institute includes staff capacity building, giving priority to appropriate
curricula within courses, providing quality assurance, and offering and delivering its
own award courses. It also includes ensuring that institutional culture, structures and
processes are driven from within and not from outside the country.
Timorisation is an essential focus of the partnership, particularly in light of the
long history of the local people’s exclusion from formal positions of responsibility
and their need to now reclaim their rightful place in the development of their
nation. With respect to their dignity as people and to the principle of subsidiarity,
the Timorese hold or are being prepared for key decision maker positions. The
partnership is committed to ensuring that the Timorese people are not “passive
recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs” (Sen, 1999, p. 53).

Financial and Capital Resources

The sourcing of ongoing funding for the day-to-day running and future operations
of ICFP is a principal responsibility of ICFP and a constant pressure for the Director
and management. In examining the collaborative role of the other partners with
respect to the infrastructure of ICFP, it is important to understand the financial and
in-kind contributions that ICFP receives.
The Diocese of Baucau has had an important collaborative responsibility in these
matters as ICFP used Church land and buildings for its initial infrastructure. The
endorsement by the Bishop of ICFP as a priority work of the Church has also given
the Institute leverage in accessing international funds.
The Marist Brothers have had a collaborative role in this area. In addition to the
involvement of volunteer personnel, including the Brothers, the Province provides a
substantial annual recurrent grant to ICFP. Originally the Marist Brothers Province

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Office in Melbourne forwarded recurrent funds and donations to the Institute. Now
these funds come to ICFP through Marist Asia-Pacific Solidarity (MAPS).
Australian Catholic University has had a collaborative role, assisting through the
waiver of fees for the certificate and undergraduate courses and in the first instance
subsidising 50% of the cost of the staff postgraduate study. It has also collaborated
through the establishment of a scholarship fund and the engagement of ACU
Foundation as a partner with other groups such as eMerge Foundation in Australia
to raise funds for ICFP. The involvement of ACU academic and professional staff
on a voluntary basis has also contributed to the capacity building of ICFP. The travel
costs for these staff volunteers have been covered either by their organisational
structures within the University or by donations from sympathetic outside bodies
such as Rotary.

CONCLUSION

This educational capacity building partnership for Timor-Leste was both a

shared and collective commitment: shared in terms of the responsibilities of each
partner and collective in that the total enterprise has been an outcome of the joint
commitment of the partners. Their commitment of personnel and resources to meet
these responsibilities was integral to the impact of the partnership in educational
capacity building.
The mapping of the responsibilities of the partners within each of the four domains
(see Table 6.1) showed the importance of the partners’ having an appreciation of and
respect for each other’s roles and responsibilities. The interweaving and interplay
of these roles and responsibilities, including formal accountabilities, required the
key people to be ‘boundary spanners’ (Miller, 2008) bridging worlds, cultures and
jurisdictions.
Differences in perspectives, priorities and approaches were worked through in
ways that were true to the foundational values, institutional deliverables, institutional
infrastructure, and ensured institutional sustainability. In working through these
differences each partner needed to be sensitive to the historical contexts of this
educational capacity building as well as to the current contexts affecting the elements
within each of the four domains. These included historical and educational contexts
within Timor-Leste, the Australian and international contexts, as well as Church and
cultural contexts.
Each partner has been appreciative of the invitation it received to join in this
educational enterprise and of the welcome it received from the people, the
government and the Church of Timor-Leste. Both the spirit of collaboration and the
moral commitment of the partners were reflected in the words of Professor Peter
Sheehan, ACU’s Vice-Chancellor during the establishment of ICFP.
I sense there is an urgent necessity to assist in the educational reconstruction of
East Timor in whatever ways are possible, and Australian Catholic University

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is committed to supporting that process. As a Catholic University, my

University has a special mission to use its expertise to assist in the training
and education of those who are themselves committed to the values of
sensitivity to justice, respect for the dignity of the person, sound ethics, and
the characteristics of good citizenship. In turn, the task of helping East Timor
assists ACU to respect and give expression to its regional conscience, which
must be expressed personally, professionally, and collectively. (P. Sheehan,
personal communication to staff, November, 2003)
The holistic, collaborative and long-term nature of this institutional capacity
building was essential as Timor-Leste emerged from a long history of dependence
and conflict. Many other post-independence partnerships were concerned
specifically with the provision of particular goods or services, the reconstruction
of schools and other facilities, or the development of infrastructure such as roads,
bridges, and telecommunication destroyed in the conflict following the referendum
for independence in 1999. The sustained collective commitment in this partnership
addressed both the professional development of current teachers and ICFP’s nature,
role, capacity and credibility as a sustainable Catholic teacher education institution.
An evaluation of this partnership in terms of its approach to and impact upon
transforming education in a post-conflict small state is reported in the following
chapter.

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EVALUATING THE PARTNERSHIP

Having previously traced the history and the interactions and contributions of the
various partners, this chapter provides an evaluation of the partnership in terms of its
impact upon ICFP, its achieving international development principles, its fostering
of Catholic identity and its contributions to Timor-Leste. It begins by examining
how far there is evidence of ICFP emerging as a quality tertiary institution. The
achievements of international development principles are then evaluated against
the Paris Declaration and the Accra Accord. The evaluation further examines
the implementation of principles of Catholic social teaching as an expression
of the partnership’s Catholic identity and mission. Finally, the chapter discusses the
partnership in terms of its achievements in educational capacity building in Timor-
Leste as a post-conflict, small state.

ICFP AS A QUALITY TERTIARY INSTITUTION

The NAAAA Reports

A major piece of evidence for the development of ICFP as a quality tertiary institution
can be found in the public domain. This comes from the government of Timor-
Leste itself in two reports from the National Agency for Academic Assessment and
Accreditation (NAAAA) that became ANAAA in 2012. NAAAA was established
in 2006 and is a full-member of both the ASEAN Quality Assurance Network
(AQAN) and the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher
Education (INQAAHE). Evidence from both the 2011 and 2012 NAAAA reports are
drawn upon, with 2011 being the first public review of ICFP by this assessment and
accrediting agency.
In its 2011 report, NAAAA substantiated the creditable achievements of ICFP
as a quality tertiary institution in terms of its mission, institutional deliverables,
infrastructure, and future sustainability. It commented upon the appropriateness
of ICFP’s mission for a higher education institution and found that its academic
offerings are appropriate to this mission. In terms of courses ICFP’s offerings met
the Minimum Curriculum Development criteria. NAAAA commented favourably
upon the management team from an academic perspective and acknowledged the
complexity of ICFP’s academic accountabilities, stating that: “The curriculum …
conforms to quality requirements of the Ministry of Education of Timor-Leste,
Australian Catholic University and the AUQA” (2011, p. 11).

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ICFP’s attention to staff and student quality was confirmed by NAAAA reporting
that student selection processes were regarded as “stringent” and included both
examination and interview (p. 14). In terms of lecturing, NAAAA reported that the
staff “has a very good grasp of the basic ideas of pedagogy, curriculum, learning
and assessment and most impressively has embedded all this within the Timorese
environment” (2011 p. 6). NAAAA acknowledged how lecturers either have suitable
academic qualifications or are in the process of studying for such qualifications. As
part of its capacity building ICFP had also “proactively increased the proficiency of
its staff in Portuguese” (NAAAA, 2011, p. 19).
With respect to institutional infrastructure, ICFP’s governing body and
administrative management were assessed as being “appropriate, qualified and
adequate” (p. 3). NAAAA reported that the learning resources including library,
computer facilities and classrooms had met the standards and were adequate for
the purpose. It was noted how teachers from local primary schools were able to use
the library as a resource which was “well stocked, updated and managed” (p. 14).
ICFP, with its “well organised administration processes”, “responsible accounting
procedures” and “good management of the physical facilities” had met the property
and financial planning requirements (p. 18).
In summary, the 2011 report indicated that ICFP had fully met the designated
requirements and standards for institutional accreditation, including undergraduate
educational programmes, educational and student support services, and
administrative processes. The NAAAA report provided evidence in the public
domain of the outcomes and transformations that have occurred in ICFP from its
initial development through to its independence as a tertiary institution within the
Timorese context.
The 2012 NAAAA report presented to ICFP further reinforces how ICFP
has sustained a very high level of outcomes in terms of the four previously
identified domains of foundational values, institutional deliverables, institutional
infrastructure and institutional sustainability. It commented that ICFP’s
“institutional mission is appropriate to higher education” and that the “academic
offerings fit the institution into either the university, institute or academy
classification” and “the academic program is in keeping with the institutional
mission” (pp. 1-2) and “the content and programme outcomes are consistent
with bachelor level training, and the credit units meet the minimum curriculum
requirements set by the Commission” (p. 3).
The Panel commended ICFP on its approach to ensuring quality curriculum,
teaching and assessment including the “use of external experts (Margie Beck) to
develop a curriculum that is both locally relevant and internationally equivalent”.
It also recommended that “ICFP’s lead should be followed by other HEIs to
achieve quantum improvements in curriculum quality” (p. 12). The Panel further
commended ICFP for “developing collegial ethos of self-review, reflection and
improvements that all staff are engaged in” (p. 12) and also reported that ICFP’s

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“academic standards are robust” and that the “quality assurance practices are also
well-entrenched” (p. 12).
With respect to governance of the institution, the Panel reported that the simple
governance structure of the Director being accountable to the local Bishop and the
Provincial of the Marist Brothers in Australia “has been very effective in the early
stages of the Institute’s establishment” (p. 12). The assessment committee also
found that ICFP “has a well-equipped and well managed library, good computer
facilities linked to the Internet and classrooms are equipped with data projectors”
(p. 3). With regard to institutional infrastructure and sustainability, the Panel noted:
“construction is underway for a new building costing $1.4 million with expected
occupation in 2013. This building will partially replace aging facilities and expand
space for classes, staff rooms and also the library” (p. 3)
On the Timorisation of ICFP, the Panel reported that the plan “to gradually turn
the management of the institute over to the qualified Timor-Leste staff…is working
out well” (p. 12). It applauded the support given by ICFP to its academic staff to
study the Master of Education at ACU via distance learning mode, which enabled
the staff “to study the latest developments in educational methods to support further
development of the bachelor of teaching programme” (p. 12).
Sometimes accreditation processes can be treated with a degree of scepticism
but these positive reports from NAAAA need to be seen within the context of a
very uneven higher education sector in Timor-Leste. In 2009 by the time NAAAA
commenced its accreditation inspections, there were, on paper, some seventeen
universities and higher education colleges within the country but at least three were
not functioning at all. When the first accreditation process was begun only fourteen
institutions made submissions and only seven of these immediately met accreditation
standards. The positive reports regarding ICFP and the noticeable absence of any
serious criticism of the Institute represented a solid endorsement of its operation and
the leadership of its Director, Brother Fons van Rooij.

Course Demand and Impact

Another piece of evidence for the quality of ICFP has been the demand for student
places. This has remained high, with demand exceeding available places each year
(see Table 5.1). ICFP has continued to enrol at least 50 students a year since 2003
with 42 the lowest number of teachers graduating in any one year since 2006. The
public credibility of ICFP was evidenced in it maintaining a high level of demand
even with the opening of other institutions or organisations in Timor-Leste for the
education of teachers.
The impact of the course and the quality of the applicants can be also seen in
the high retention rates of students (90%), the number and high standard of the
students who won scholarships, and the public acknowledgement within schools
and communities of the quality of the graduates. In a nation where primary

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teachers are still often poorly trained, the Institute has stood out for the quality of
its graduates.

Research and Scholarship

ICFP provides evidence of the Institute’s commitment to research and scholarship

through the work of its staff. In 2008 Margie Beck co-edited a book, Rebuilding
Education and Health in a Post-Conflict Transitional Nation: Case Studies from
Timor-Leste and in 2006, she published a chapter, “Starting from the Beginning:
Primary Teacher Education in East Timor”, in J. Earnest and D. Treagust’s Education
Reform in Societies in Transition. In 2013, Margie Beck and Silvanio Araujo, one of
the Timorese tutors, co-authored a chapter about School Leadership in Post-Conflict
Societies edited by Simon Clarke and Tom O’Donoghue from University of Western
Australia that was published by Routledge Press in New York.
Timor-Leste staff presented papers at conferences in Timor-Leste and Australia.
ACU also presented papers at international conferences on the capacity building
at ICFP. Mariano dos Santos, Nina Sidalia Maria de Oliveria, Domingas Belo and
Diamantino de Assis have presented at a conference in Dili, Steps to the Future,
sponsored by Charles Darwin University in October, 2012. ICFP staff also presented
papers at conferences in Australia, including at the Sixth International Conference on
Catholic Educational Leadership held in Sydney in 2013. Given that many staff have
only recently acquired a Master’s degree, they have begun to assume a respectable
record in conference presentations.

Investment in Timorisation

A central focus in the partnership has been the Timorisation of ICFP, which has
required transformations in perceptions and realities of both the Timorese and the
partners. These transformations have included the shift to management, leadership
and teaching by Timor-Leste staff and from these being recipients of professional
knowledge to being agents in their own learning and capacity building. The Timorese
academic staff assumed key leadership roles including Deputy Director (Academic)
and Academic Coordinator as well as providing the staffing for course delivery. The
Timor-Leste professional staff also assumed major responsibilities in the institutional
infrastructure including library, information technology, student administration and
campus buildings and systems.

International Credibility

Finally, evidence suggests that ICFP has gained a high level of international
credibility. As outlined in previous chapters the Institute began in modest ways in
its early years. It was restricted in the teaching spaces available for instruction, a
restriction exacerbated for a time when the main lecture hall was used by Internally

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Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their families because of the domestic upheavals
during 2006. The power supply and information technology, as an example, were
so erratic and limited in the early years that Margie Beck used a portable generator
in her classroom to power a data projector when offering professional development
courses.
Subsequently, a new building was planned and constructed which ensured
ICFP had quality facilities of international standing. This new four storey building
is testimony to the ever present commitment of the Marist Brothers, through the
foundational work of Brother Mark Paul, the planning and oversighting by Brother
Fons van Rooij and resourcing through Brother Allen Sherry of Marist Asia-Pacific
Solidarity. Despite a worldwide economic downturn in 2008, the Institute succeeded
in attracting a high level of overseas funding from Misereor, the eMerge Foundation
in Australia, Marist Brothers networks and other Church organisations to assist in
the development of this building programme.
Funding has also been allocated to student scholarships and living allowances,
staff salaries, administrative expenses and equipment costs. The high standing of
ICFP has provided a credible basis for donations to student scholarships granted
to over 80 of the 150 teacher education students. These financial contributions are
indicative of the growing belief in the international stature of ICFP.
The importance and quality of the work of the Marist Brothers in ICFP has been
seen in their being one of the very few religious congregations that received a
special mention in Acknowledging the Past, Shaping the Future (Field, 2008). This
extensive report, which was commissioned by Caritas Australia about the Church’s
contribution to development in Timor-Leste, referred to the Marist Brothers as a
congregation that operated the “respected” college in Baucau (Field, 2008, p. 21).
This assessment is also repeated by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade (DFAT) website. It has awarded ICFP development funding of $600
000 (mainly for scholarships and student fees) for the years 2012-2015. These
assessments further suggest that the partnership has been effective in maximising
the benefits and outcomes for the students, the Church and the nation, particularly in
light of the 325 teacher education graduates by 2013, a retention rate of more than
90% each year, and its encouragement of lecturing staff to complete the Master’s
degree.

PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The second lens for evaluating the partnership is that of meeting international
development principles. This includes a review of the relationships in, and operation
of, the partnership in terms of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) and
the Accra Agenda for Action (2008). The principles of the Paris Declaration included
ownership, alignment, results and mutual accountability. Those of the Accra Agenda
were predictability, in-country systems and conditionality.

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Ownership

ICFP has grown from a shared vision and commitment of the Bishop of Baucau and
the Marist Brothers with the latter then inviting ACU to be a partner and guarantor of
quality in what was initially the Catholic Teachers College, Baucau. The principle of
ownership has included the partners deliberately investing in the Timorisation of ICFP
and the gaining of Timorese community confidence and trust. As previously noted,
the Institute has come to be regarded within Timor-Leste as a high quality institution
producing capable and creative graduates. From the beginning of the partnership,
the commitment of the Australian staff to earn local respect and trust, because they
were aware they were ‘foreigners’, minimised the likelihood of the capacity building
being seen as another ‘takeover’ of the Timorese by a foreign power. ICFP, and
particularly the expatriate staff, have come to be seen as being there because of their
commitment to the people of Timor-Leste and their future. Australians working in
the Institute have been conscious that they bring their own history, experiences, and
professional knowledge. However, despite this awareness, ICFP has been viewed,
at times, as a ‘foreign’ tertiary institution because of its association with ACU, its
leadership by the Marist Brothers, and because its management and administration
was perceived as being based upon a model that was new and therefore ‘foreign’ to
the country. It says something about the nature of the partnership that ICFP continued
to develop and grow through involving the Timorese in the running of the Institute
and gaining the respect and support of the people of Timor-Leste. The NAAAA
Reports have all been positive in their assessments of the progress of Timorisation
by the Institute.

Alignment

The alignment of the objectives of the partners with those of the nation and Church
of Timor-Leste has been based upon mutual respect. Differences in language,
culture, experience and expectations have been identified and addressed so that all
groups feel comfortable with each other and can work together constructively for the
greater good of the community. The partnership has achieved significant milestones
in the alignment of objectives and outcomes. These have included commitment
to professional development of teachers at local and regional level; development,
offering and review of the teacher education course; graduation ceremonies for
teachers, staff capacity building and postgraduate graduations; national accreditation
of ICFP, ICFP ownership of courses, ICFP staff research and community engagement;
and attention given to role of local staff in the management of the institute.
The principle of alignment has been reflected in the bringing together of two
cultures and the development of appropriate administrative infrastructure and
capacity. ICFP’s administrative systems were developed from, not controlled by,
those from Australia. This required the bringing together or alignment of quite
different administrative cultures, approaches and capacities. The partnership has

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focused upon this challenge through ensuring that proper procedures, including
those for quality assurance, are in place, developing the capacity of the local staff
and reviewing procedures in light of local contexts.

Results

The results in terms of foundational values and quality deliverables outlined above
have given satisfaction to people involved in the partnerships. ICFP, through its
collaboration with ACU and the Marist Brothers, is now playing an important role
in primary education and preparing young people to take up the role of educating
the children of Timor-Leste. Graduates from ICFP are now professionals who are
currently teaching throughout the country either in schools or as trainers in other
organisations. The partnership, through the commitment of all involved to their
particular responsibilities in terms of the four domains of foundational values,
institutional deliverables, institutional infrastructure and institutional sustainability
has achieved a fundamental international development goal – to develop Timor-
Leste through this educational capacity building.
The outcomes achieved in terms of Foundational Values and Quality Deliverables
have been a focus for public acknowledgement at graduation ceremonies, at which
the Timorisation of ICFP is celebrated in the graduation of ICFP staff with Master’s
qualifications. This acknowledgement and celebration has been extended to include
the wider community, including people in public or government roles.

Mutual Accountability

Mutual accountability has been an integral element of the partners meeting their
accountabilities across jurisdictions. As the Diocese and people from Baucau have
assumed increasing responsibility for and within ICFP, the reporting processes will
need to continue to address this perspective of mutual accountability. This is an
integral element of the development of accountability processes by the people and
government of Timor-Leste for their own institutions. The international partners are
able to inform these processes through research into internationally and culturally
appropriate good practice.
In the context of mutual accountability, the partners were conscious that the four
domains - foundational values, institutional deliverables, institutional infrastructure
and institutional sustainability – would not be advanced at the same pace and with the
same priority. At different times, one area of development took precedence over the
others such as a central focus on institutional deliverables before giving priority to
institutional infrastructure. What is certain in terms of mutual accountability, however,
is that all these areas of development continued to be advanced conjointly, and that
attention was given to what was necessary in both the short and longer term. It has
taken more than ten years to achieve growth to this point, which has provided a sound
basis for the Institute to attain an appropriate level of independent sustainability.

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Development of the capacity of the people of Timor-Leste, and particularly the

staff of ICFP, has been essential for mutual accountability. All Institute staff, from
the maintenance mechanics to the lecturers in charge of units, have been able to
access courses that will develop their ability and capability in their particular
roles. They have completed courses through TAFE in Australia and Master of
Education degrees through Australian Catholic University. This outcome has
been achieved because of the belief that the Institute has the responsibility to
provide the highest qualified staff to educate future teachers. The allocation of
funding, staff time and other resources to this capacity building has shown how
strongly this value is held.
This evaluation of the partnership has shown how, from an international
development perspective, the partnership has reflected the three principles of the
Accra Agenda for Action (2008) that are concerned with the long-term nature of the
collaboration and development and the priority given to in-country capacities and
capacity building. The three principles are predictability, in-country systems and
conditionality.
In terms of predictability ICFP was assured of long term support by the partners
with a continuing focus on foundational values and institutional deliverables,
priorities for institutional infrastructure giving continuing and increasing attention
to Timorisation and the widening international partner base giving increasing
assurance for institutional sustainability. In-country systems were given priority
in addressing each of the domains with the systems developed drawing upon best
practice internationally but with attention to local context and culture. In terms of
conditionality the international partners were responsive to ICFP’s priorities and
while being attentive to their responsibilities within their own jurisdictions pursued
these with an overarching attentiveness to the local context, requirements and
processes.
These principles articulate transformations for such nations in terms of the people
being assisted in developing the capabilities for setting goals, identifying strategies
and reporting outcomes. The principles also articulate transformations for the
partners in terms of their roles in sharing responsibility for, and not determining the
nature and outcomes of the development enterprise.

CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

The evaluation further examines the implementation of principles of Catholic social

teaching as an expression of the partnership’s Catholic identity and mission. This
social teaching, which has been expressed in many Church documents, has been
brought together as a set of ten major principles and associated challenges for
international development by the Catholic Alliance for International Development
(Davies et al., 2010). These ten principles focus upon respecting and promoting:
the dignity of the human person; the common good; a preferential option for the
poor; people’s rights and duties; participation of the people in the development

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programme; economic justice; solidarity with the people; stewardship of creation;

the promotion of peace; and subsidiarity (Davies et al., 2010).
The dignity of the human person was an explicit basis for a holistic approach to
the staff, students and wider community through a focus on health and engagement
of youth through sport. The focus on the wider community through the nation
wide selection of students and participation or employment of graduates showed a
commitment to the common good. The whole initiative is grounded in a preferential
option for the poor with priority being given to their right to education, health and
wellbeing as well as their participation in capacity building and decision-making.
Economic justice was addressed in the immediate term by employment of Timorese
and in the longer term by the employment of graduates and a nation-wide commitment
to the people being able to graduate from schools having received education to assist
them in sustainable living and possible employment. The foundational values of
the partnership included an institutional commitment to caring for each other in
the community. The partners’ commitment to solidarity was evident in ICFP being
a source of peace and stability, particularly in 2006 a significant time of unrest
and conflict in the nation. The partners were always attentive to working within
the regulatory framework of the government as well as exploring ways to work in
partnership with government.

POST-CONFLICT SMALL STATE

An important question to be answered is in what ways and to what extent is this

partnership contributing to Timor-Leste’s educational capacity building as a post-
conflict small state? We know from the literature that education is central to the
development of such nations. It was both timely and important that the initial focus
of the partnership was on the professional development of the teachers in schools,
the majority of whom were untrained. The problem of having a substantial number
of untrained teachers as well as the learning by rote heritage from Portuguese and
Indonesian times were addressed through the teachers college emphasising the role
of learner as the principal agent in their learning. ICFP and its partners adopted an
across-generational approach to capacity building in Timor-Leste. The professional
development of teachers continued as a priority for ICFP even after the introduction
of the internationally accredited undergraduate teacher education course. Hence,
quality educational capacity building is being provided through both a pre-service
course and professional development offerings. This across-generational approach
to capacity building was very salient for Timor-Leste in its emergence from a history
of conflict and colonialism and now continues to be extended by the partners to other
domains such as health and engagement of youth through sport.
This educational capacity building has been sustainable and of high quality
because of the long term and open-ended commitment of the in-country partners,
the Bishop and ICFP, and the international partners, the Marist Brothers and ACU.
The partners’ commitment to their responsibilities in terms of the four domains

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of foundational values, institutional deliverables, institutional infrastructure and

institutional sustainability was also central to the impact of this partnership in this
post-conflict small state. Making Timorisation integral to the project building meant
that over time capacity building has always been led from within the country and
is focussed upon the longer term capacity and sustainability of the institution. The
partners have always asked what the situation is, what the priorities and needs are,
what is being asked of them and how they could best advance this educational
capacity building. The capacity building and commitment to Timorisation have
also had an impact nationally as previous staff, now graduates from the Masters
course, assume new roles and responsibilities in government and non-government
organisations.

CONCLUSION

This evaluation of the partnership has focused upon evidence in terms of ICFP as a
quality tertiary institution, principles of international development, Catholic social
teaching as an indicator of Catholic identity and mission, and outcomes for a post-
conflict small state. The evaluation has shown how ICFP and its partners have been
committed to giving priority to the participation and capacity building of the people
of Timor-Leste. The short- and longer-term goals of the partnership have been based
upon the priorities of the government of Timor-Leste and the vision of the Church
of Baucau. The four areas of development for ICFP, foundational values, quality
deliverables, infrastructure and future sustainability, have been advanced through
the development of its academic and professional capacity and the associated active
promotion of the Timorisation of ICFP.
Goals and strategies were aligned with national requirements while the partners
ensured that students graduate with an internationally accredited qualification.
Increasing attention has been given by the partners to the acknowledgement and
celebration within Timor-Leste and Australia of the results of the collaborative
development. Stakeholders were attentive to being true to their own mission as
Catholic institutions and also meeting the requirements of mutual accountabilities.
As the partnership continues into the future, the sustained commitment to the
four principles of the Paris Declaration will continue to build upon the foundational
values of ICFP and extend the scope of the quality of deliverables, including ICFP’s
own courses. The partnership has provided a sound basis for further promoting
the priority of leadership and governance in ICFP by the Timorese. ICFP, with
the support of the partnership, was well positioned for assuming its education
institutional independence in terms of both institution and course accreditation.
The evidence presented in this chapter shows that ICFP had achieved beyond the
standards required for these accreditations. In the final chapter we shall look at
the general lessons that might be learned from such a partnership for international
development.

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CONCLUSION

On the hillside overlooking much of Baucau, ICFP is currently completing a four-

storey building as part of its main campus. Directly across the road a site is being
negotiated for a possible future building of a similar size. These developments are
a far cry from the small number of leased rooms in which the Catholic Teachers
College commenced its operations more than a decade ago. ICFP is now a recognised
institution in Timor-Leste granting its own degrees and applauded for the quality of
its primary teacher graduates who are employed in both Catholic and government
schools. Timorese now play a prominent role within the Institute’s teaching and
research responsibilities. The local people have given the Institute support at public
events and liturgies and at every student graduation enthusiastic parents and other
relatives often travel long distances to participate in the ceremony. In Australia, the
partnership has been able to widen its core of supporters for ICFP through fund
raising functions as well as obtain the support of other European development
organisations.
The current trends in education in Timor-Leste stand in contrast to the Portuguese
colonial period when it was offered only to the elite. Education during the
Indonesian occupation was certainly broader in its participation rates but focussed
upon the priorities of the Indonesian government not the local people. With the
vote for independence the small and post-conflict state faced the daunting task
of establishing and staffing an educational system that was seen as crucial to its
own future development. Ideally, it would encourage social cohesion, economic
recovery and help repair the shattered society (World Bank, 2005, p. 27; Lowicki,
1999, p. 44.). The partnership described in this book was one part of adding in the
capacity building of this system. The previous chapters have outlined the ways in
which this partnership originated, how it developed and the benchmarks for its
success to date. As the previous chapter has explained, this partnership can be seen
as having fulfilled many of the guidelines set out by the Paris Declaration and Accra
Accords for encouraging and making development aid more effective. From the
Paris Declaration these include:
• Ownership. Timor-Leste, at the government and community level, now possesses
a sense of ownership and pride over the presence and contributions of ICFP;
• Alignment. The international partners have always been willing to align their
objectives behind those set by their Timorese partners and deliver assistance
through local systems;

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• Results. The focus of the partnership was always upon the development of ICFP
and its programmes and how the results could be measured;
• Mutual accountability. All four partners have been aware of and accountable for
the developments at ICFP.
The Accra Agenda included:
• Predictability. The partners were willing to think in terms of longer term plans so
that arrangements were made to make personnel and other resources available in
a timely manner;
• In-country systems. Where practicable in-country systems were developed and
used as a first option for aid delivery leading to an increasing Timorisation of
ICFP;
• Conditionality. The partners eschewed prescriptive conditions about when
and how their resources were spent in order to suit ICFP’s own development
objectives.
The partnership certainly combined a wealth of experience in higher education,
teacher education, resource management, church leadership and community
engagement to initiate and support this development in Timor-Leste. It could also
draw upon a wider international network, religious and secular, for further support.
Aware that Timor-Leste faced difficulties of developing its education system given
its limited financial resources, the lack of professional staff and the problems of
creating equal opportunities for students often over remote geographical areas, the
partnership attempted to address many of these issues over time (Bacchus, 2008;
Peters, 2001, p. 45). In the last part of this chapter we need to look at what lessons
were learnt for development aid, particularly in the educational field, in this small
and post-conflict society.

SHARING A COMMON VISION

It is easy to point out that the partnership involved similar faith-based people and
organisations: the Catholic Bishop of Baucau, the Marist Brothers, the Australian
Catholic University and the Catholic based ICFP. They all supported the principles
of Catholic social teaching and understood the importance of education as a means
of transforming lives. They entered into this development programme at a time when
UNTAET largely ignored the Catholic Church and its agencies in the post-conflict
reconstruction period. Yet such faith-based institutions are often most trusted in
developing nations and this was true for Timor-Leste given the role of the Catholic
Church during the period of Indonesian control (Nayaran, 2000). However, holding
such principles does not, in itself, mean that all partners in faith-based organisations
will work well together or succeed in their aims. Nor does it mean that non-faith
based agencies engaged in development partnerships have nothing to learn from
this exercise. After all, even though they shared a similar faith, there were different

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cultural groups involved in the partnership, namely East Timorese and Australians
and other Europeans who could be expected to have different ways of approaching
the issues of development. What was important was that all the partners were on
‘the same page’ in terms of what they envisaged they wanted to achieve, namely
develop a quality teacher education institute over time, even when they still had
to work through the details of how they would do it. This common vision gave the
partnership strength of purpose when there would be differences, on occasions, as
they worked through this process. Any development partnership needs to be bound
by a common vision amongst the parties involved in order to sustain it through
periods of trial and stress. It also has to have a degree of flexibility and willingness to
modify the vision over time and this is partly derived from all the partners respecting
one another in the venture.

RESPECT FOR PARTNERS

While it was possibly easier for the partners to resolve differences because, broadly
speaking, they shared the same vision, the way forward still needed to be negotiated
with the views of all parties being respected. The problem of development agencies
entering a project with their own agenda and assuming they know what is best for the
local partners without consulting or understanding them has been well documented
in the literature (Medenhall, 2008, p.152). Both the Marist Brothers and then ACU
brought considerable expertise to the partnership and it would have been easy for
them to have insisted upon taking the leading role in the project without due regard
for their Timorese partners. This would have been disastrous for, as we have seen
in the history of East Timor, it had been dominated by outside powers for centuries.
Since independence the Timorese have taken pride in being able to shape their own
future. There may have been occasions, when tensions arose when they thought the
Australians were having too much control in the partnership. Nevertheless for it to
have existed for so long, with relatively few major disagreements, also suggests
that the parties were more engaged in a respect for the other’s point of view. One
example will suffice. While the governance of ICFP was found by the 2012 NAAAA
report to be simple but direct and adequate, it would be considered unsatisfactory by
Australian higher education requirements. Australians would expect to have more
formal structures in place and ACU could have pushed the Bishop and ICFP to
provide these as part of its accreditation process. The issue was certainly raised but
it chose not to push this point out of respect for the way local practices operated. The
current ICFP structure is adequate at this point in time and it was not seen as an issue
over which to threaten local sensitivities.

A LONG TERM AND EVOLVING COMMITMENT

Some foreign aid is obviously meant to be short term. A NGO arrives to build a
bridge or road and hopefully consult the locals over it and iron out any problems.

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Within a short time they complete the project and leave having ticked the boxes that
the bridge has not fallen down or the road subsided. The project is then declared a
success. Other areas, however, are not so easy to have the boxes ticked in the short
term. Education, as we have seen, is rated by experts as a long-term proposition
and may need a very substantial commitment (Buckland, 2006, p.8). Although the
partners came to the project without any given time lines, and produced formal
Memoranda of Understandings each covering a limited number of years, there was
an underlying assumption that the project would require long-term commitments.
Five years is a reasonable time period for an aid programme but at the end of 2004
the whole project at ICFP was still very much in its infancy. To have dissolved the
partnership at that stage would have meant not enough time had been devoted to
institutional capacity building at ICFP. Indeed, the primary degree programme at
that stage lacked any real recognition and in 2006 ACU went to great lengths to
have it accredited and also recognised by the Australian government. The eventual
success of the primary programme was clearly due to the partnership working
within a long time frame. In one sense 2012 represented the end of an important
stage of the partnership when the government of Timor-Leste decided that ICFP
must stand alone in accrediting its own courses. ACU then turned over the primary
course to the Institute but still remained committed to proving assistance with
future course developments and other programmes. Even now there are issues
still to be addressed. ICFP has become since 2012 the degree granting institution,
but its graduates currently have lost the international recognition that the degree
had previously achieved through ACU accreditation. This issue still needs to be
resolved. There is also consideration of further course developments at ICFP that
may involve nursing or health sciences. This will require more resourcing and
commitments from the partners. Perhaps, in the end, the Institute might become
part of a Catholic University in Timor-Leste but again that is both a question
of future development and further long-term support that the partners, to date,
always have been willing to accept. There is no sense that the Marist Brothers or
ACU took the view in 2012 that the boxes could be ticked and they could move on
to some other development programme.
It is also a truism that organisations per se do not run aid programmes but rather it
is the key people working in these organisations that are responsible for much of its
success or failures. In many NGOs or even government agencies such people may
work on short-term performance contracts. The success of a particular programme
may change with a change of personnel. In the case of this partnership it has been
characterised by the long-term commitment and ongoing presence of key personnel.
By 2014, for example, Bishop Basilio is still Bishop of Baucau, only two Marist
Brothers have been Directors of ICFP over its history and Margie Beck, Jude Butcher
and Tony d’Arbon still continue to work and support the project on behalf of ACU.
This stability of personnel over nearly a decade and a half has given the partnership
a sense of endurance and ongoing commitment.

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 CONCLUSION

WORKING WITHIN CAPACITY

The original partnership between the Bishop and the Marist Brothers began on a modest
scale with the creation of Catholic Teachers College. It had limited resources and
concentrated initially upon a programme of in-service professional development for the
large number of untrained teachers who were filling the gaps in the education system
after the departure of the Indonesians. It then moved into the pre-service teaching area
and established a link with ACU that gave it a primary programme and staff expertise
and guidance. The infrastructure of the campus had to be built up slowly since it received
no government funding and had limited financial support from abroad. As the previous
chapter noted, the partners were conscious that the four domains – foundational values,
institutional deliverables, institutional infrastructure and institutional sustainability –
could not be advanced at the same pace and with the same priority. At different times,
therefore, one area of development took precedence over the others. If it has been a
slow progress, it has also been a steady and successful one in the training of students
and academic staff to allow for the greater Timorisation of the project. To date more
than three hundred students have graduated through ICFP but these numbers are not
large considering the overall shortage of primary teachers in the country. It would have
been tempting to have admitted a larger numbers of students even though the Institute
would not have been able to handle them at an academic or pastoral care level. Rather
than the Institute being able to handle friction between students from different regions,
such a policy may have only exacerbated it. Other institutions such as the National
University did attempt to admit large numbers of students in a short period of time and
then struggled to cope with many students falling by the wayside.
Ten years ago if a four-story building had suddenly been provided in Baucau
complete with a computer laboratory perhaps courtesy of a large foreign aid grant,
the actual surrounding infrastructure would have struggled to cope with it. What
was the point of a room filled of computers if the town’s power supply regularly
failed? The project needed to be aware of the limitations as well as the opportunities
that existed in the society in which it was based. This is not to suggest there was no
vision for the future. The funds to build the current new campus building came from
many sources drawn upon by the experience and background of the directors of the
Institute itself and MAPS. They knew the right development agencies to approach in
order to build for the future. The commitment within the partnership to developing
the four domains of foundational values, institutional deliverables, institutional
infrastructure and institutional sustainability over this longer term had to be a balance
between future development planning and the realities of the situation as it unfolded
in Timor-Leste. They could not be driven by overseas agendas.

ENSURING ONGOING CREDIBILITY AND QUALITY

The partnership from the beginning sought to establish academic credibility and
ensure quality within its project. Initially, it met needs by offering professional

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development courses for untrained teachers right across the country. These courses
gave CTC nationwide credibility before, as an Institute, it introduced an award
course in pre-service primary teacher education that had the backing of ACU and
was subsequently accredited by the university. As well it offered the Certificate of
Teaching and Learning at school and district levels as an important commitment to
the professional development of local teachers. This search for quality and credibility
in its courses stands in contrast to a number of other recent educational colleges set
up in Timor-Leste to offer courses in a range of areas usually with little by way of
accreditation and often in ‘sandwich’ courses that rely upon a quick turnover of
students. At first, some of these colleges impinged upon the demand for places at
ICFP because they appeared to offer qualifications in shorter and less demanding
time frames. However, over the past two years demand for places in the Institute’s
primary programme has risen again as its response to this competition has been
to emphasise the quality and credibility of its course. The government has also
acknowledged this with many ICFP graduates now employed in its schools rather
than simply in Catholic schools.

RECOGNISING BROADER DEVELOPMENT GOALS

From the beginning, the partnership has been involved in capacity building within
the primary education system including at the tertiary level by educating Timorese
staff to increasingly take control of ICFP. But the partnership soon struck the same
problems endemic in many small and developing states. Once it assisted staff to
obtain their high professional qualifications, they have often been quickly lured into
better paying positions at other NGOs and government agencies who are desperate
for such staff. For some aid projects, the loss of these staff members would be seen
as a failure of the project aims. Certainly these losses have, in one sense, been an
obvious disadvantage to ICFP and a setback in fostering the academic profile of the
Institute. Nevertheless, since this is a long-term partnership and flexible in its scope,
it has taken the view that its ultimate aim of capacity building is not simply for
ICFP, but is also a commitment to the people of Timor-Leste. If it loses high quality
staff to other parts of the country, it has nevertheless increased the capacity building
of the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is willing to continue with the programmes
of educating staff to at least the Masters level while recognising that it will not
necessarily be able to retain them all in the face of better paid job offers because
it will still be enhancing the nation’s educational profile. Accepting that an aid
programme may need to think outside the box in terms of what it hopes to achieve is
an important consideration in setting and pursuing development goals.

ENSURING LOCAL PARTICIPATION, RESPONSIBILITY AND SUPPORT

When the first Marist Brothers arrived at Baucau to commence working with the
Bishop, they knew relatively little about Timorese society. Unlike some aid workers

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they were anxious to find out how the society worked. They quickly employed a
number of locals to assist them to find their way and to understand something of
the conditions in which they would be operating. Since that time there has been
a constant policy of engaging with the population at different age groups and in
various ways. At first untrained teachers were given professional development and
certification and, where possible, older and experienced Timorese were employed
on the staff of the Institute. The Certificate of Teaching and Learning gave further
accreditation to older teachers within the system. From the beginning the Institute’s
staff travelled to learning centres set up outside of Baucau in order to make access to
study easier for these older teachers.
The Institute also consciously decided upon allowing younger school leavers into
the new primary programme to provide teachers who had not been influenced by
the older system. High performing graduates could then provide a possible pool
of future ICFP staff. Great care and a lot of time and trouble were taken to ensure
that these student intakes were drawn from all over the country. This fostered a
sense of national unity but also was designed to overcome the social disadvantage
of geographical remoteness that could hinder student access to higher education
(Bacchus, 2008). The Institute ensured that poorer students could obtain their
education by offering scholarships, largely funded from abroad, so that nearly half
of the present student body is receiving financial support. All these decisions served
the Institute well during the troubles of 2006, as the student body remained relatively
untouched by the violence. Despite some fears that led the partners to consider
evacuating expatriate staff, the campus itself was spared any of the destruction found
in parts of Baucau and the rest of the country. Since that time, ICFP has encouraged
the policy of Timorisation of ICFP staff, giving them increasing responsibilities
while the partners play a supporting role. The Marist Brothers and ACU have
also broadened the scope of their commitments to local participation over time by
introducing health care, childcare and sports programmes that add other dimensions
of support for the local population across various age groups.

Conclusion

Education has been recognised as an important factor in helping to overcome

disadvantages among the people of developing nations. In the case of Timor-Leste,
the after effects of its struggle for independence and the small size of the State
left it with grave problems in providing educational capacity building in the years
after 1999. In response, as we have seen, a partnership was developed between the
Diocese of Baucau, the Marist Brothers in Australia, Australian Catholic University
(ACU) and Instituto Católico para a Formação de Professores (ICFP) at Baucau to
assist in meeting some of these problems.
At first, the goals of the partnership were modest and specific but over time these
have broadened into ongoing and multi-varied co-operation between the partners.
Inspired by Catholic social teaching and an awareness of development aid principles,

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the partnership has been able to draw upon a wider group of supporters both within
Timor-Leste and from Australia and Europe in order to give the project a greater
scope. With a commitment to the principles presented here, ICFP, and its partners,
are well placed to continue to contribute to Timor-Leste’s future educational
development.

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 APPENDIX 1
List of Marist Brothers who have served in ICFP

Br Mark Paul 2000–2007

Br Steven Bugg 2000–2003
Br Canute Sheehan 2000–2002
Br Michael Herry 2001–2006
Br Manuel da Silva 2000–2003 (Portugal)
Br Fons van Rooij 2006–2014
Br Tony Clarke 2008–2014
Br John Horgan 2007–2013
Br Peter A. Walsh 2012–2014
Br Lesio Heckler 2013–2014 (Brazil)
Other Brothers have visited for a short time to support the project.

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 APPENDIX 2
List of Staff Employed at ICFP (at time of publication)

Br Fons van Rooij fms Director

Mariano dos Santos Deputy Director
Staff
Adelaide Monterio da Cruz
Agata Moreira Freitas
Avila Maria do Espirito Santo da Cruz
Bendita da Costa
Crisogno Soares Freitas Pereira
Delson R. do Carmo
Diamantino de Assis
Edviges Maria Cidalia de Olivera
Francisca Augusta da Costa Guterres
Gertrudes Gusmão
Henriqueta Pereira
Jaquelina dos Santos
João Mariano Helder de Deus
José Celestino da Silva
Joaquina Belo Freitas
Josefina Belo Pereira Freitas
Juvinalia Antonia de Fatima Ribeiro
Joviana Antonia da Costa
Justina Lopes
Manuel Belo da Silva
Mauricio Egidio da Costa
Silvanio de Araujo

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 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jude Butcher cfc, AM is the Director of the Institute for Advancing Community
Engagement and Professor at Australian Catholic University with its Community
Engagement agenda of “Beyond Today” through which the University focuses its
community engagement nationally and internationally. His research and publications
cover a number of related areas including community engagement, international
development, teacher education, human rights and transformational partnerships. He
has been involved in educational capacity building in Timor-Leste for twelve years.

Peter Bastian is an Honorary Professor at the Australian Catholic University. He is

the author of several works including A Century of Celebration: RSL LifeCare, 1911–
2011 (2011), Andrew Fisher: An Underestimated Man, (2009), John F. Kennedy and
the Historians,(2008) and Bearing Any Burden: The Cold War Years,1945–1991,
(2003). He has also previously served as editor of the Australasian Journal of
American Studies (1986–1990, 2000–2006) and has received several university
teaching awards.

Margie Beck has lived in Timor-Leste for the past 12 years. Originally a lecturer at
Australian Catholic University, she was seconded to ICFP Baucau in 2003 and has
seen the Institute develop from the very beginning. Her journey with the Institute
has been filled with learning, teaching, sharing and developing lasting relationships
with staff and students of the Institute. Currently, she is a self-employed volunteer,
working Deputy Director-Quality Assurance at the Institute.

Tony d’Arbon is a Marist Brother and Emeritus Professor at Australian Catholic

University. He has taught, researched, supervised and published in Educational
Leadership with a particular focus on leadership succession in schools and
educational systems. This has included study of educational leadership in remote
indigenous areas of Australia. He has been involved with ICFP in a consultative role
since 2002. More recently, he has been a tutor for the staff members of ICFP enrolled
in the Master of Education at ACU.

Youssef Taouk is a Research Associate at the Institute for Advancing Community

Engagement, Australian Catholic University. He co-ordinates international
community engagement at ACU and travels to Timor-Leste regularly. He has had
hands-on experience with the project outlined in this book as well as with other
ACU projects in Timor-Leste. He also lectures in modern European history and
has published a number of academic articles and research reports in community
engagement and in history.

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