East Timor University comprises of the National University of East Timor which was started in the year 2000.The East Timor University has received a lot of help from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth and Cultural Affairs. In the year 2000 Father Filimeno Jacob took a very distinctive step in starting the classes of the university with a group of 5,000 students.
After receiving a financial aid of 1.3 million $ from the education budget of East Timor the National University of East Timor shifted to the capital city of Dili. Apart from receiving a huge grant from the education budget Timor Leste University has got help from organizations like United States Agency for International Development, the Camara Municipal Lisboa and the Australian Center for Educational and Agricultural Research.
But the history of the Timor Leste University does not suggest a very good beginning and in 2000 there were a whole lot of problems faced by it in the first stage which involved lack of proper classrooms, library, administrative staff, telephone communication and library. A good number of former teachers returned to the East Timor University and decided to start their career from there itself though they knew the initial stages were quite difficult.
East Timor University currently has five faculties in the fields of Engineering, Education, Political Science, Economics and Agriculture. In the month of July 2001 the National Research Center and the Institute of Linguistics was inaugurated for the students. The mission of the Institute of Linguistics is to spread the development of the language of Tetum.