DILI, 27 june 2022 (TATOLI) – Owner and Director of St. Anthony’s International School (SAIS), Cristina Yuri Rebelo dos Santos Costa, informed that, so far SAIS has used a curriculum from the Northern Territory Australia to ensure the quality of SAIS.
“As an international school, we have full rights to choose the curriculum. Therefore, since SAIS was founded in 2017, we have collaborated with the Association of Independent Schools of the Northern Territory (AISNT) and have also been affiliated with two Schools in Australia such as Nyangatjatjara College in Yulara, Northern Territory, and Good Shepherd Lutheran College in Lanyard. Darwin, Australia to use their curriculum until now. We also use the Timor-Leste curriculum, which consists of History, Geography, Portuguese Civil Rights, and Tetum subjects so far,” said da Costa during an interview with Tatoli at her office, Palapasu, Dili, Monday.
According to da Costa, Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Education allows international schools to choose the curriculum they want to implement in their schools to ensure international quality standards, but MoEYS also urges them to associate the curriculum with the curriculum from Timor-Leste.
“Other relevant subjects such as Mathematics, English, and Science are delivered to students according to the quality of an international school, but we also give importance to other subjects included in the Timor-Leste curriculum, such as Tetum, Portuguese and History subjects, intending to provide knowledge to students about their identity as Timorese,” She said.
So far, SAIS has 23 teachers consisting of 8 international teachers and 11 Timorese teachers with a total of 159 students.
The Director said, so far SAIS has not yet received a license and accreditation permit from MoEYS, however, SAIS currently has a commercial license to conduct educational activities in Timor – Leste while waiting for a response from the Ministry of Education regarding the application was submitted to MoEYS to apply for a license and accreditation permit from MoEYS, whoever she said, the Ministry of Education has no responded yet saying MoEYS currently focused on processing the decision law for International Schools in Timor-Leste and will respond as soon as possible.
St Anthony’s International School (SAIS) is the first AISNT Member School from outside the Northern Territory. It is located in Dili, Timor-Leste. St Anthony’s began as the Tutoring Tree and was started by Cristina Costa Ribero and Cesar Dias Quintas. Both were committed to providing choice in schooling for students in Dili, and aspire to build a school that provided schooling of a world class standard.
SAIS used the modified Australian curriculum at the same time it is also offered language program in Tetum and Portugues.
So far almost all the students in SAIS speak between two to four language.
Journalist : Camilio de Sousa
Editor : Nelia B
