East timor: Education and health in focus. (Spot Light).

For the past six months, Armindo Maia has had an enormous responsibility. On 20 September 2001, he was sworn in as the first Education Minister of the Second Transitional Government of East Timor, appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative and Transitional Administrator following the Constituent Assembly elections on 30 August. The Government and its Council of Ministers, headed by Chief Minister Mari Alkatiri, are now governing East Timor, as it prepares for independence as the world's youngest nation State at ceremonies scheduled for 20 May 2002. One of the Government's first actions will be the signing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Among the notable achievements towards independence by the Second Transitional Government and its predecessors, directly administered by the United Nations, was the return to school of more than 240,000 primary and secondary students in early October 2001 for the new academic year. They are being taught by nearly 6,000 teachers using the more than 1 million textbooks that have been distributed to schools throughout the country. Some 5,000 students are attending the National University of East Timor, which was reopened in November 2000. More than 700 primary and 100 junior secondary schools, 40 preschools and 10 technical colleges are currently functioning in the country. Of these, 535 schools, or more than 2,780 classrooms, have been rehabilitated to basic operational level under the Transitional Administration's Emergency School Readiness Project. This represents the total number of classrooms that needed rehabilitation after the violence of September 1999. The Transitional Administration has also rehabilit ated the Ministry of Education in Dili and has set up administrative structures and emergency educational processes. A school mapping process began in April 2001 to examine each school's physical condition, the facilities available, the area served by each facility, and projected student population and retention rates.

Students at the primary and secondary levels represent one third of East Timor's population. Investment in technical and vocational training for older students is another fundamental priority of the educational administration. In October 2001, the Division of Education launched a double- track initiative to train teachers. Those who do not possess a bachelor's degree are being trained towards that level at the National University, while others received fast-track in-service training. The National Research Centre and Institute of Linguistics at the National University of East Timor's new campus in Dili will support the work of the agriculture, technology, economics, education and political science faculties, and promote the development of the Tetum language.

Since the formation of the Second Transitional Government, the Ministry of Health has largely taken over the implementation of health care in all districts through a network of 64 community health centres, 88 health posts and 117 mobile clinics. Not all are functioning, and recruitment of doctors is ongoing. Plans call for 21 doctors to be assigned throughout the districts. Construction of the first community health centre in Comoro, Dili, is expected to be completed before independence, and 21 more will start soon. The construction of the National Medical Store at Kampung Alor, also in Dili--a key element in the establishment of an autonomous medical supply system-- was completed in late December. Most drugs used in the health system are procured through the District Health Services Central Pharmacy, which opened in April 2000. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) handed over the management of the Dill National Hospital to the Transitional Administration in June 2001. When ICRC undertook the management of the hospital in September 1999, much of the equipment and medical supplies were missing or damaged. Since then, the hospital has been rehabilitated and now operates at near full-capacity. Significant efforts have been dedicated to the training and capacity-building of the Timorese medical staff, whom ICRC credits with saving hundreds of lives.

A territory-wide campaign to raise public awareness about HIV/AIDS has been launched to help avoid the kind of epidemic that has crippled other developing nations. The Health Ministry has initiated priority, short-term interventions among marginalized youth and sex workers.