Curriculum Changes in East Timor: What About Educators?

(Universidade Nacional Timor-Lorosa'e, Portugal)

Abstract: The reform of the education system and the curricular changes that have taken place over the last few years in Timor-Leste have caused significant changes in pre-school education and, consequently, educators have been faced with new challenges, such as, increasing their roles and responsibilities. These challenges stem, among other factors, from the introduction of new methods and techniques for assessing learning, the excessive activities they have to develop and the expansion of their functions. In this context, the research question is: how do preschool educators view the curriculum and the assessment of learning in the context of curricular changes at this level of education? The main instrument for data collection was the semi-structured interview, carried out with four kindergarten teachers, performing their professional activity in two public institutions located in two municipalities in the country. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The results point out that, for most educators, the current curriculum facilitates the exercise of their functions as educators, since in the lesson plan and in the session plan, issued by the Ministry of Education, both the teaching methodology and the , such as the technique and method of evaluation, grids, teaching plans, criteria and evaluation indicators. The curriculum that used to be centered on teaching and educators is now more centered on learning and children. However, the curriculum contains an excess of recreational activities, which can harm the learning of the contents and leave the educator insecure to evaluate, as he does not have enough time to observe the development of all children. Despite the advantages they recognize in the current curriculum, they consider that the previous curriculum gave educators more autonomy to adapt activities and assessment to each context.

Key words: educators of the kindergarten , curriculum, assessment, Timor-Leste