Prime Minister of Australia Mr Kevin Rudd, MHR [also to other ministers] January 2008
Dear Prime Minister
Re: Australian and Cuban education assistance to Timor Leste
We the following academics, writers, organisations and NGO workers observe these developments, on education assistance to Timor Leste:
•over 2002—2007 the number of university scholarships offered by the Australian government to students from Timor Leste declined from 20 per year to eight per year.
•over 2003—2006 the number of medical training scholarships offered by the government of Cuba to students from Timor Leste increased from 50 to 1000.
There are currently 800 students from Timor Leste studying medicine with the Cubans. This makes it probably the biggest aid program in medical training, per capita, in the world. Adult literacy training in Timor Leste is now also dominated by the Cubans …
We urge your government to strengthen this latter path and match the Cuban scholarship offer.
Cuban health and education programs are recognised and commended by the World Health Organisation and UNESCO. But Australia also has great capacity to share, through its schools, universities and teachers. There is a great deal of goodwill in our country towards the East Timorese, despite the damage done by the oil and gas dispute and the recent crisis.
We urge your government to begin a large scale public education program for the East Timorese — matching the Cuban offer of 1000 scholarships — in areas in which we have great capacity, such as teacher training …
Yours sincerely,
Dr Tim Anderson, University of Sydney; John Pilger, filmmaker and author; Professor Frank Stilwell, University of Sydney; Professor Stewart Firth, head of the Pacific Centre, Australian National University; Shirley Shackleton, East Timor activist; Dr Meredith Burgmann, former president of the NSW Legislative Council; Max Lane, Indonesian studies, University of Sydney.
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