Background:

Timor-Leste, the world’s third newest democracy, has conducted seven free and fair elections since independence in 2002.  While the country has made a number of significant gains in governance, legislative reform, building state institutions, and citizen responsiveness, the Government of Timor-Leste (GOTL) continues to face considerable challenges.  These include weak institutional and human capacity of government institutions, extreme dependency on the state’s petroleum fund, and high rates of poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy.

In Timor-Leste, grades 1, 4 and 5 have the highest dropout rates (at about 7%). The primary reasons for school dropout include prolonged absence, household chores, educational expense, poor academic performance, bad behavior and repetition.

Summary:

USAID's School Dropout Prevention Pilot (SDPP) is a multi-country project, which mitigates dropouts from primary and secondary schools in Timor-Leste. SDPP works with 190 schools in Timor-Leste, involving nearly 30,000 students in grades 4, 5 and 6 and 900 teachers.  SDPP designs and tests the effectiveness of varying interventions on dropout rates at primary and secondary schools.  The project generates data that can be used by the host government and donor partners to decrease dropout rates and change behaviors causing dropouts in order to retain young learners in school.

USAID’s SDPP works with teachers to use existing data on school attendance, performance and behavior to identify and provide in-school support to students prone to leaving school. Through USAID’s SDPP, community volunteers work with teachers to actively support at-risk students and raise awareness about the importance of school retention.

SDPP also conducts weekly extra-curricular activities in primary schools to motivate students to attend school.  These activities foster cooperative-learning, enhance self-confidence and reinforce basic literacy and numeracy skills.

The SDPP’s implementation research model will provide the GOTL’s Ministry of Education with information on the most effective methods to decrease school dropouts in Timor-Leste’s primary and secondary schools, while adding to the global body of knowledge on school dropout prevention.