Language Politics in Education in Post Independence Timor Leste

Abstract

The implementation of Portuguese in teaching and learning activities in primary and secondary schools is the implementation of the mandate of article 13 of the constitution which states that Portuguese and Tetun are the official languages ​​of Timor-Leste. The government of Timor-Leste through the Ministry of Education seeks to implement phasing in Portuguese and phasing out Indonesian language program ​​at all levels of education in Timor-Leste which began in 2000 and completed in 2010. The policy is closely related to the implementation of language politics in education. This study was done in a qualitative approach and involved 47 key informants, consisting of 12 primary school teachers, 15 middle school teachers, 10 primary school students and 10 high school students in Dili. The data was obtained through in-depth interviews, field observations and document analysis. The results show that the language politics implemented through the phasing in Portuguese and phasing out Indonesian language policies in teaching and learning activities in primary and secondary schools was confusing, contradictory and ambiguous and there was no development as expected by the government. In fact, teachers and students prefer mixing Portuguese-Tetun in teaching and learning activities in the classroom. However, in the final and national examinations, the students were still required to work on questions in Portuguese. Although the language politics was more inclined towards the phasing in Portuguese, what actually happened was the Phasing in Creol language (mixing Portuguese and Tetun). In other words, language has been such a problem in education in Timor-Leste.