A Member of Parliament (MP) has recommended that the Ministry of Education (ME) introduce Portuguese language education at the pre-school level, because the language is also part of the Timorese identity.
MP Joaquim dos Santos Borluli said that the Portuguese language is not only an instrument of communication in public administration but is also enshrined as an official language under Article 13 of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (RDTL).
“We suggest that the Ministry of Education should introduce the Portuguese language in pre-school education, and that this should be mandatory,” he said.
He said that the development of the Portuguese language in schools and in the future should begin from pre-school education because pre-school is the foundation for learning and makes it easier for students to learn to communicate in Portuguese.
“The Portuguese language should be introduced from pre-school onwards, and there should be teachers who specialise in linguistics,” MP Santos said.
He said that all citizens should know how to speak Portuguese because it is an official language, and that introducing it in pre-school education will ensure that, within the next ten years, the new generation will already know how to speak it.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Education, Dulce de Jesus, said that Portuguese is already being used in pre-school education, although it is applied at a basic level according to the children’s abilities.
“In pre-school, our students only learn about colours, fruits, animals, letters and numbers. Our teachers teach these in Portuguese as well as Tetum so that the children can understand,” she said.
She said that pre-school education is not mainly focused on academic subjects, but also on play, because most children in pre-school are between three and six years of age.
“We welcome all these suggestions to improve the development of education in Timor-Leste, because this is everyone’s responsibility,” she said.
She also said that, regarding Portuguese language teachers, the Ministry has recently recruited a total of 67 teachers to be assigned to schools from pre-school to secondary level.
“These teachers continue to participate in Portuguese language training to improve their capacity to transmit knowledge to students,” she said. She added that the government continues to invest in the capacity building of teachers, not only in the Portuguese language but also in other fields of knowledge.
