Education and Guerrilla Warfare

Timor-Leste is the first democracy to establish itself as such in the 21st century, its past marked by invasions that led to education in the country being characterised by various interventions that manifested themselves linguistically throughout the country. Initially, with the Portuguese colonisation process, little was done for Timor in terms of education. With the Indonesian invasion in 1975, after a short period of independence, there was investment in the construction of schools - from early childhood education to higher education - based on an ideologically integrationist and oppressive teaching approach. In contrast, internally, the struggle for the restoration of independence against the Indonesian invasion led by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), together with the Union of Timorese Students (UNETIM) and members of the group called Casa dos Timores, began a process of Popular Education that was greatly influenced by Paulo Freire, Mao Tse -Tung and Amilcar Cabral. This process was linked to political awareness and the everyday knowledge of the students themselves in favour of teaching contextualised to the needs of the struggle, called Maubere Pedagogy.