Portuguese reintroduced: Pupils, teachers tongue-tied in E. Timor

Portuguese reintroduced: Pupils, teachers tongue-tied in E. Timor

Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Dili

There is a tragicomedy taking place in the East Timor's
elementary schools. It revolves around the teachers' low
proficiency of the Portuguese language, which the government has
decided to use as the official language of instruction for grades
one to three.

The problem is that very few teachers have a reasonable
mastery of the language of the former colonial master. They speak
their mother tongue, Tetum (also spelled Tetun), and Bahasa
Indonesia, being products of the Indonesian educational system.

So now they must teach their pupils in broken Portuguese,
because it is required by the constitution.

And the students? They speak the same languages as their
teachers. Generally, they can address their teachers with a few
standard phrases in Portuguese, such as "good morning". The
teachers say their pupils have only very basic reading and
writing skills in Portuguese.

"Yeah, it is funny but we have no other choice because
(teaching in Portuguese) has been made obligatory by the
government," said Anacleto da Costa, a teacher at the St. Yosef
Catholic school, which is located across from the Indonesian
military cemetery in Dili.

The government began reintroducing Portuguese in grade one of
elementary schools three years ago, when the former Indonesian
province voted to secede from the Republic. This academic year,
the mandatory Portuguese affects grades one to three.

For grades four through university, Tetum and Indonesian will
continue to be the languages of instruction.

For the younger people, Portuguese is the language of the
older generations, who still have strong cultural and emotional
ties with Portugal and its former colonies such as Mozambique,
Angola and Guinea. Powerful figures from this circle continue to
dominate the decision-making process in Timor's Parliament and
government bureaucracy.

Portuguese used to be widely used by educated Timorese until
Indonesia annexed the territory in 1976 and imposed its language
and educational system.

The choice of Portuguese as one of the two national languages
shows the determination of East Timor's leaders to align the
country with Portuguese-speaking countries.

Article 13 of East Timor's constitution stipulates that while
the official languages are Tetum and Portuguese, local dialects
will be "nurtured and developed". Indonesian and English are
mentioned in Article 159 as "working languages that may be used
in the government along with the official languages as long as
they are still deemed necessary".

The use of Portuguese as one of the country's official
languages, as mandated by the constitution, has drawn strong
criticism from younger East Timorese, who prefer Indonesian or
English if a foreign language must be adopted.

"It is to accommodate the ego of the 'gray' generation," said
Eduardo, a university student who said he knew nothing about
Portuguese. "Indonesian or English would be a better choice.
Indonesian is widely spoken and English is the world's official
language."

Interest in English has risen along with the presence of a
large number of international staff members of the United Nations
and non-governmental activists from English-speaking countries.
Besides, the country has been sending its best and brightest
students to study in countries like the U.S. and Australia.

An official household survey conducted in 2001 by the Planning
Commission shows that Portuguese is used by only 5 percent of the
population, slightly higher than the 2 percent who use English.
Tetum is used by 82 percent of the population and Indonesian by
43 percent.

Supporters of Portuguese as an official language of the nation
argue that the language is necessary to maintain the Portuguese
cultural values that became deeply rooted in East Timor after 450
years of colonization.

"Tetum is no longer adequate to express ideas in this era of
fast developing science and technology, so over the course of
time it has come to include Portuguese words," said lawmaker
Jacob Xavier, a Portuguese-educated politician who chairs Partido
Do Povo de Timor (Timor People's Party).

Even so, the cash-strapped East Timor government has yet to
upgrade its teachers' Portuguese skills to fulfill its dream of
having a Portuguese-speaking population.

Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Armindo Maia said that
although the Portuguese language issue created some controversy
in the beginning, people had begun to accept it.

High on the ministry's agenda is to import Portuguese-language
textbooks and to send more teachers to Portugal to learn the
language.

But the government's plan has failed to impress skeptics like
Anacleto da Costa, who claims to have attended countless
Portuguese courses and received heaps of certificates, but still
finds the language too difficult to comprehend.

He said: "I am skeptical that the Portuguese language campaign
will go anywhere in the foreseeable future, because the pupils
live in communities that speak Tetum and Indonesian. Their
environment doesn't support the use of Portuguese for
communicating in real life."