130,000 new textbooks head to classrooms as Timor-Leste overhauls health curriculum

Dili, 26 May: Earlier this week, 10,000 Grade 8 Health and Well-Being textbooks were offloaded at the Ministry of Education warehouse in Dili. Stacked in neat bundles awaiting dispatch to schools across the country, the freshly printed books carry with them one of the most significant updates to health education Timor-Leste has seen in years.

In all, more than 130,000 textbooks and teacher guides have now been printed and delivered, or are in the final stages of distribution, under a collaboration between the Ministry of Education and the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise and strengthen Health and Well-Being textbooks and teacher guides for Grades 7 to 9 under the School Health Say No to 5S (SN5S) Project.

Consignment of textbooks arriving at the Ministry of Education’s warehouse on May 18 2026 (© WHO Timor-Leste)

Minister of Education Dulce de Jesus Soares called the curriculum revision one of the most substantive recalibrations of health education the country has undertaken, embedding well-being into the bones of the national curriculum.

"For me, strengthening Timor-Leste's education landscape rests on a few key pillars, and one of them is curriculum revision. It is a crucial component for the systematic capacity building of the school education system," she said recently.

The minister welcomed WHO's support in helping the Ministry revise the Grade 7 to 9 curriculum and bring a stronger health component into it. WHO, she said, assisted in the elaboration of the health content in the books, providing technical input, deploying a health professional to ensure the content was medically sound, and supporting the printing.

WHO Representative Dr Arvind Mathur said the revision reflects a wider recognition that health education begins long before a child enters a clinic. "It is the foundation of one of the outputs of our joint SN5S project, which aims to ensure that all primary and pre-secondary school children receive effective health education through a holistic approach," he said.

Textbooks being officially handed over to Minister of Education Dulce de Jesus Soares by WHO Representative Dr Arvind Mathur in the presence of KOICA Country Director Ms. Youn Hwa Kang on April 7 2026 (© WHO Timor-Leste)

"By strengthening what students learn in school, we are working together to support healthier choices early in life and to create learning environments that promote well-being."

For Grade 7, WHO supported a thorough technical revision of the textbook, drawing on expertise from its teams working on communicable and noncommunicable diseases, neglected tropical diseases, nutrition and food safety, immunization, reproductive and maternal health, and health systems. With financial support from Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), WHO supported the printing of 47,328 student textbooks, 1,228 teacher guides and 27,328 Physical Education textbooks. Distribution to all municipalities was completed by February 2026.

For Grade 8, WHO engaged Dr Maria do Céu, a former Ministry of Health official, to lead a sustained technical review alongside the Ministry's Curriculum Team. The revision concluded in December 2025, followed by a design phase aligned with the Ministry's editorial standards. WHO supported the printing of 50,000 student textbooks and 5,000 teacher guides, the consignments of which are getting delivered now. Nationwide distribution is expected to conclude by the first week of June 2026.

Children from Escola CAFE Covalima pose with their new textbooks, ready for new lessons. (© WHO Timor-Leste)

The Grade 9 revision is in its final stages and is scheduled for completion by May 2026.

Dr Mathur underlined that schools, as the SN5S Project rests on, are among the most effective venues anywhere for shaping lifelong behaviour, and the textbooks now reaching Timorese students are designed to do precisely that.