This, in turn, could have provided employment for many of the local residents who are presently unemployed and in this way also renovated the city as well as providing adequate and appropriate housing for many people. I was told that the present unemployment rate is at a record high of over eighty percent. I was physically assaulted with an iron object one evening by two young men in a motorcycle after I refused to give them the money they demanded. I was rushed to the emergency room of the local hospital where I received eight stitches on the right side of my head. There are no elementary or secondary schools at the moment.
Children receive three hours of instruction daily, mostly from unpaid, volunteer teachers.
There is also the problem of thousands of Timorese students who were formerly enrolled in Indonesian universities are now unable to return. They now need passports to enter Indonesia, and also many of them are unable to pay their tuition fees. I was told that this problem was one of the topics of discussion when President Abdurachman Wahid visited East Timor last February. It remains to be seen how this urgent problem will be resolved. Many graduate students complain that many jobs now require proficiency in English or Portuguese, to the dismay of many.