OUR MISSION
Empowering Timor-Leste through Education: The Jesuit Initiative for Transformation and Leadership Development
In 2011, the Society of Jesus embarked on an education project in Timor-Leste to help the country meet some of its great need in the area of education. By providing quality education programs and making them available especially to the poorest people, the Jesuits seek to form critical, competent, and caring leaders, attentive to and shaped by values derived from the Ignatian tradition, the Catholic faith, and the cultural context of Timor-Leste.
The Projeto Educação Jesuíta comprises two complementary institutions – Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiolá, a secondary school, and Instituto São João de Brito (ISJB), an institute to train senior secondary school teachers. It is located in Kasait, a rural area approximately 18 km from Dili. Construction began in 2012 and it will take at least 10 years to complete.
The secondary school accepted its first intake, of Year 7 students, in 2013. By January 2018, the school will have its full complement of approximately 600 students in Years 7 to 12.
The teacher education institute commenced in 2016 with a modest initial intake of 25 students. The Instituto São João de Brito complements Instituto Católico para Formação de Professores, a Catholic teachers’ college for primary education, founded in 2001 by the Marist Brothers, which also serves all 13 districts of Timor-Leste.
Eventually, when the government achieves its aim of reforming secondary education in the country, the education project will establish centers for lifelong learning through research and training in the areas of media and communications, civil society and culture, and faith formation and leadership.
Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola (CSIL)
Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola was established in 2012. It is the middle and secondary school of the Jesuits in Timor-Leste which aims to provide quality education for anyone who wants to avail of Jesuit education. The school started its actual academic year in 2013 with an intake of 83 pioneering students. To date, the school has grown with 827 student body with 61 staff and is reaching out to the poorer students in the local area and other remote districts.
Instituto São João de Brito (ISJB)
Instituto São João de Brito (ISJB) is the tertiary teacher-training institution of the Jesuits. It is under one umbrella of Jesuit Education Project with Colégio de Santo Inácio de Loiola (CSIL) as its laboratory school for the teacher-trainees. The institute started in 2016 with 24 students. Now in 2022, the total number of students has reached 469 of which 288 are women and 181 are men. There are four departments offered by ISJB: English, Portuguese, Religious Education, and Mathematics.
