The Ministry of Education is the central body of the Government of Timor-Leste responsible for the design, execution, coordination and evaluation of public policy in education , from pre-school through basic, general secondary, technical-vocational and recurrent education.
Our Mandate
Under the programme of the IX Constitutional Government, the Ministry is charged with guaranteeing every Timorese citizen’s constitutional right to education, ensuring universal and compulsory basic schooling, and defining the national curriculum at every level of the school system. Its core responsibilities include:
- Consolidating the official languages, Tetum and Portuguese, in education while promoting local languages, cultures and history
- Managing pre-school, basic, secondary and technical-vocational education, including special forms of education
- Training teachers and implementing the teaching career framework
- Maintaining an efficient network of school facilities across all 13 municipalities and the Special Administrative Region of Oecusse-Ambeno
- Promoting recurrent education and lifelong learning to eradicate illiteracy
- Introducing information and communication technologies in schools and administrative services
- Operating a school inspection system that ensures legal compliance and curriculum implementation
Leadership
The Ministry is led by Minister of Education Dulce de Jesus Soares, appointed on 1 July 2023 in the IX Constitutional Government. She previously served as Minister of Education, Youth and Sport in the VIII Constitutional Government (2018–2020). The Minister is supported by the Secretary of State for General Secondary and Technical-Vocational Education, Domingos Lopes Lemos.
Our History
When Timor-Leste restored its independence on 20 May 2002, the nation faced the task of rebuilding an education system from the ground up: most school buildings had been destroyed in 1999 and the majority of teachers had left the country. Since then, successive governments , working with partners including the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Education, UNICEF, UNESCO, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Japan , have rebuilt thousands of classrooms, trained a national teaching workforce and steadily expanded access at every level.
Two milestones anchor the modern system: the Education System Framework Law (Law No. 14/2008), which established the legal architecture of Timorese education, and the National Education Strategic Plan 2011–2030, which sets the long-term vision of universal basic education completion, full literacy and gender parity.
Vision
Our vision is that every Timorese child and young person , regardless of gender, disability, language or place of birth , completes a quality education that equips them to participate fully in the social, economic and cultural development of the nation.