Education and peacebuilding in Timor-Leste: negotiating the process, unravelling local agency

The moulding of a working education system is a key challenge for new states, especially for those political orders that are emerging from armed conflict. Studies that have examined the education-war relationship leave no... [ view full abstract ]

The moulding of a working education system is a key challenge for new states, especially for those political orders that are emerging from armed conflict. Studies that have examined the education-war relationship leave no doubt about the salience of education in post-conflict reconstruction. While an extensive body of studies have examined the relationship between education and conflict, less attention has been devoted to the complex relationship that exists among education, peacebuilding and statebuilding. Moreover, the role of international actors in post-conflict educational reconstruction is often overlooked.

This paper addresses these gaps, first by exploring if and how the education system that has been built in East Timor has addressed and achieved peacebuilding objectives. Second, it examines the role and ways in which a variety of international actors have shaped education, focussing primarily on changing power relations with local actors.

The paper is based on a thorough desk review complemented by a five-week field work in East Timor in June-July 2013, during which interviews were conducted with a variety of local and international agencies. It first maps education programming and reforms. Second, it explores the connections between education, peacebuilding and statebuilding. Third, it looks into the way in which international actors may have contributed to peacebuilding through education, by reflecting on how, over a decade of peacebulding and statebuilding practices and discourses, the approach of key international agencies to education may have changed. Finally, the ever-evolving relationship between international and local actors in education governance is put under scrutiny.