Education

Among the many needs of the community the Melville Friends of Lete-Foho & Hatolia has identified education as being of the highest priority for those communities.

After visiting Lete-Foho and Hatolia, Melville Friends have decided to focus initially on the community schools with urgent requirements.

Teaching resources are almost non-existent and frequently students even have to bring their own chairs. Teaching materials are severely lacking even down to the most basic requirements such as blackboards, pens and stationery. There are but a few text-books and these are deplorably out of date.

Hatolia Vocational Secondary School    

In Hatolia, students who finished Year 10 could go on to high schools in regional centres, or to schools in the capital Dili. However, most parents cannot afford the expense, and so their children’s education stops at this point.

Recognising the importance of education to the future of Hatolia, community leaders were determined to establish a high school for their children, with or without government support. By the time we [MFoH (TL)}arrived, they had already selected teachers and a building (the senior secondary school would share classrooms with the local Catholic primary school). All that was needed to start was additional funding, beyond the school fees, to pay the teachers.

 This humble little school was registered in January 2009.

Once registered a school in East Timor receives government benefits, that include utilities payment of US$1,00 per student per month to help it to meet ongoing running costs and also the salaries of  four full time teachers. The salaries of the rest of the teachers have been met by the School Board from student fees.

So, MFoH (TL) provided financial support (AU 8,300) for the new teachers and the school opened in October 2008 with 117 boys and girls attending the first senior high school in Hatolia.

It was a big success for the community.

There is still much more to do in Hatolia. Library and laboratory facilities are needed and accommodation is needed for future visitors, such as Australian ESL teachers.

• School Resources

Members of MFolh recently packed up three pallets of donated school supplies to be sent to four schools in Hatolia.  The resources included four black boards, thousands of exercise books, encyclopaedias, stationary and art supplies. The Pallets were transported to Melbourne kindly by Linfox (free of charge).

As you know computers are an invaluable resource part of our lives today, whether we live in Australia of Timor Leste.  After the City of Melville's donation of 3 lap tops inAugust 2009 , the school has now five computers for use by teachers and pupils.

• STEP program

MFoLH has agreed to support a project that will provide further training to teachers of English in TImor Leste schools.  The program bring teachers from the Ermera district for workshops to improve their skills in teaching English as a second language. Eight teachers from Lete-Foho and three from Hatolia have been selected for the program. MFoLH supported these teachers with $3,500.