Plans to teach traditional music in schools are being embraced as a way to ensure customs are passed on to younger generations.
The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Secretary of State for Arts and Culture, is revising the curriculum to incorporate the arts and natural and social sciences.
“Our idea is for them to build up their sense of belonging, ownership and identity,” said Ego Lemos, advisor to the Ministry of Education for curriculum reform.
Several advisors with backgrounds in the arts and social sciences are working to reform the curriculum to include creative subjects in a Timorese context.
Lemos advises the Ministry on social science, natural science and art and culture. His main focus is on “theatre, music, dancing and also art expression”.
A large emphasis of reworking the arts and culture curriculum is the inclusion of traditional instruments, songs and stories, which do not have a set place in classrooms now.
The current Education System Framework Law aims to “strengthen identification with the historical basis of East Timor, through stimulating consciousness of the cultural heritage of the Timorese people”.
Advisors found although cultural history and music was on the curriculum, it was not written in a way that was easily applied by educators.
“The content in the curriculum is too hard to understand by the teachers themselves because it uses too much theory. It’s also not contextualised with Timor-Leste,” Lemos said.
Those working on curriculum reform are also working with the government to find ways to train teachers who are able to specialise in creative subjects.
“So many talented people play music, and play different instruments, but being able to teach at school, that’s not easy,” he said.
The focus on traditional music and performance is aimed at preserving children’s connection to culture.
The draft curriculum reforms aim to include local plays and songs so children have an identity within their districts and villages as well as Timor-Leste.
Ros Dunlop, author of Lian Husik Klamar – Sounds of the Soul, The Traditional Music of Timor-Leste, has spent the past nine years researching music, dance and customs.
“It’s kind of an endangered culture in many respects,” she said. “There’s buffalo horns hanging in umaluliks in Oecusse but nobody knows how to play them anymore because they died and didn’t pass on the knowledge.”
Many aspects of Timorese culture were forbidden under Indonesian occupation, and culturally historical song and dance were often stopped or punished.
Many traditional instruments and artifacts were destroyed during the fight for independence, but the connection to culture has not been lost.
Titia drums from Illioma were all completely wiped out, but “in the last couple of years they’ve revived the whole culture of the titia again”, Dunlop said.
“Traditional music can’t really be talked about in isolation,” she said. “It’s a part of people’s lives, and it’s born with them.”
The office of the Secretary of State for Arts and Culture has aided the Ministry for Education with information about traditional music from the districts.
“I don’t think it’s going to disappear, because it’s important,” Secretary of State for Arts and Culture Maria Isabel de Jesus Ximenes said.
“The government has a lot of priorities in health, education, infrastructure, but I think the government also sees that it’s important to preserve our culture.”
The traditional instruments, stories and languages are being incorporated in order to place the curriculum in a Timorese context.
The reforms will ensure early primary school students are taught traditional songs in the early years of their education, before expanding into Western and modern music in high school.
“If you don’t have creativity and you don’t have a deeper understanding of your own country or your own culture, your own tradition, your own identity, how can you build up a sense of belonging?” Ego Lemos said.
Lemos lost his father and all of his siblings during conflict, and said music helped him and his mother deal with their trauma.
“I think it’s very important for healing,” he said.
“So that’s why I think it’s important, art and culture, to help the kids channel their self-expression through music, through painting, through drama, dancing, anything.”
The work of Lemos, other advisors and the Ministry of Education is being welcomed as a way to create an identity for Timorese youth.
“We really want Timorese children to know about culture, including music and dance,” Secretary of State for Arts and Culture Ximenes said.
“We want to pass this knowledge and these traditions from generation to generation so that everybody knows about the culture, because culture is the identity of the country.”
