The Ministry of Education (ME) has not yet carried out rehabilitation works on the Centro Aprendizagem Formação Escolar (CAFE) School in Baucau Municipality, which was damaged by flooding in 2021.
The Coordinator of the Timor-Leste Coalition for Education (TLCE), José Monteiro, said that based on monitoring conducted on the reconstruction process of school buildings affected by natural disasters, including flooding, in April 2021, some schools have still not been rehabilitated.
“We see that the CAFE Baucau School has still not been rehabilitated by the Ministry of Education until now. We do not know why,” he questioned.
He said that currently, students from CAFE School are only using a basic education school in Baucau, because they do not have their own building.
“We ask the Ministry of Education to urgently carry out an assessment in order to rebuild or rehabilitate [the Baucau] CAFE School, so that students and teachers can learn in a proper and dignified space,” he said.
He added that school buildings damaged in 2021 due to natural disasters should have all been repaired, not left abandoned until now.
“The Ministry must look into this so that the rehabilitation process can be accelerated,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hélio Lopes, Director of Educational Infrastructure at the Ministry of Education, said that regarding the rehabilitation of CAFE Baucau School, the Ministry has already held meetings with the President of the Baucau Municipal Authority, as well as with the General Coordinator of the CAFE Project, to discuss the rehabilitation process.
“The school building has not yet been rehabilitated because there is not yet a proper land title, but there is now a process underway to obtain the land title. We will first build a protective wall, then proceed with rehabilitation,” he said.
He explained that to construct a school building, land ownership must first be clearly identified so that no disputes arise during the construction process.
“Once the land title issue is properly resolved, we will begin the rehabilitation process,” he said.He added that the Ministry of Education guarantees that in 2026, the rehabilitation process of the CAFE school building will be completed by 2026. In the meantime, students and teachers are asked to continue using the temporary spaces currently being used.
