Timor-Leste: sustaining and maintaining the national languages in education

Abstract

This article presents an overview of language-in-education policy development between 1999 and 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. In the decade since independence language-in-education policy in this newly independent country has been dominated by debates about the medium of instruction. Over time, policy has shifted from an authoritarian stance that insisted on monolingual, submersion schooling in a former colonial language to one that accepts the need to accommodate linguistic diversity in order to promote social inclusion. Recent policy documents allow for instruction in the vernacular languages, designated in the 2002 Constitution as national languages. The article identifies some key drivers that have provided impetus for this change in orientation, a change which offers opportunities for localised language planning from below. The paper therefore suggests that the acceptance of agency at both macro- and micro-levels will play a critical role in sustaining and maintaining the national languages in East Timorese education.

Keywords:

• Timor-Leste
• national languages
• mother tongue-based multilingual education
• language-in-education; language policy and planning
• language planning from below

Notes

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, in 2008 net primary enrolment was lower than all other countries in the region; e.g. Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia, 97%; Philippines, 92%; Cambodia, 89%; and Laos, 82% (retrieved May 11, 2011, from http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=125&IF_Language=eng&BR_Fact=NEFST&BR_Region=40515).

Submersion schooling: a system where children with a low status L1 have to learn through the medium of a foreign language with high status. The L1 does not develop because the children are forbidden to use it or they are made to feel ashamed of it – a subtractive learning situation (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000, p. 582). It contains the idea that the student is expected to learn in the dominant foreign language as quickly as possible (Baker, 2006, p. 216).

Transitional schooling: the shift in the language of instruction from the L1 to the dominant foreign language or shift from the L1 to the language of literacy (Benson, 2004). Students are taught briefly in the L1 until they are deemed proficient enough to cope with instruction in the dominant foreign language. The aim is assimilation; i.e. to shift the child from the use of home languages to the use of the dominant language (Baker, 2006, p. 218).

Early-exit bilingual schooling: 2 years maximum teaching support using the L1 (Baker, 2006, p. 221).

Late-exit bilingual schooling: allows around 40% of classroom teaching in the L1 until at least Grade 6 (Baker, 2006, p. 221).