Mongolia

by Daniela Proli of SCIENTER

For entities in Mongolia see Category:Mongolia

Mongolia in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia)

Mongolia ( Mongolian: Монгол улс, literally Mongol country/nation) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 24 miles (38 km) from Kazakhstan's eastern tip.

Source : http://www.cia.gov

The population of Mongolia is around 2.9 million.

Ulan Bator, the capital and largest city, is home to about 38% of the population.

Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.

At 1,564,116 square kilometres, Mongolia is the nineteenth largest and the most sparsely populated independent country in the world. It is also the world's second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan.

The country contains very little arable land, as much of its area is covered by steppes, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south.

Approximately 30% of the country's people are nomadic or semi-nomadic. However, Mongolia has become more urbanized. About 40 percent of the population lives in Ulaanbaatar, and in 2002 a further 23% lived in Darkhan, Erdenet, the aimag centers and sum-level permanent settlements. Another share of the population lives in the sum centers. In 2002, about 30 percent of all households in Mongolia lived from breeding lifestock. Most herders in Mongolia follow a pattern of nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralism.

The predominant religion in Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism, and the majority of the state's citizens are of the Mongol ethnicity, though Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west.

Mongolia is divided into 21 aimags (provinces), which are in turn divided into 315 sums (districts). The capital Ulan Bator is administrated separately as a khot (municipality) with provincial status.

The official language of Mongolia is Khalkha Mongolian, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet, and is spoken by 90% of the population. A variety of different dialects are spoken across the country. In the west the Kazakh and Tuvan languages, among others, are also spoken. The Russian language is the most frequently spoken foreign language in Mongolia, followed by English, though English has been gradually replacing Russian as the second language.[citation needed] Korean has gained popularity as tens of thousands of Mongolians work in South Korea.[30] Interest in Chinese, as the language of the other neighbouring power, has been growing. Japanese is also popular among the younger people. A number of older educated Mongolians speak some German, as they studied in the former East Germany, while a few speak other languages from the former Eastern Bloc. Besides that, many younger Mongolians are fluent in the Western European languages as they study or work in foreign countries including Germany, France and Italy.

Education in Mongolia

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Mongolia

During the state socialist period, education was one of the areas of significant achievement in Mongolia. Illiteracy was virtually eliminated, in part through the use of seasonal boarding schools for children of nomadic families. Funding to these boarding schools was cut in the 1990s, contributing to slightly increased illiteracy.

Primary and secondary education formerly lasted ten years, but was expanded to eleven years. Since the 2008-2009 school year, new first graders are using the twelve year system. As such, full transition to the twelve year system will not happen until the 2019-2020 school year, when the current first graders graduate.

from Wikipedia

Mongolia's education system has undergone major changes in the past century. The educational reforms during communist times were a stark break with traditional education that was often religious and esoteric. These reforms were modeled on Soviet education systems and greatly expanded access to education for Mongolian citizens. Among the changes was a transition from the traditional Mongolian script, from 1941 to 1946, to the Cyrillic alphabet. Literacy was also greatly expanded as most of the population enjoyed free primary school. However, the move to democracy and free markets in the 1990s has had some negative impacts on education in Mongolia, though these setbacks have been ameliorated some by an improving economy and policy reforms. Many adults also benefit from the non-formal distance education programs sponsored by the government in conjunction with foreign NGOs in Mongolia. Today education in Mongolia is overseen by the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science.

Mongolia has an extensive, state-financed pre-school education system. Currently there are over 700 state and private kindergartens (name for a day care). While during socialist times, every sum used to have at least one nursery school and a kindergarten. Currently there only exist kindergartens that enroll children over the age of 3. In Ulaanbaatar, there are also some privately run nursery schools and kindergartens, many offer language training, for example, Russian.

The system in place for lower-level education in Mongolia has been similar to the one used during communist times, though the government has begun reforms to expand it. The original system included four years of compulsory schooling followed by a further four years of compulsory lower-secondary education. There were then two years of upper-secondary non-compulsory education that either have a vocational, technical, or general education focus.[2] The expansion, began in 2004 with the official school entry age dropping from age 8 to 7. A further expansion is set to take place in 2008 with the entry grade-level dropping one more year to age 6. The goal is to have a 12 year, 6-4-2, system for primary and secondary education.[3]

Schools in Mongolia

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Mongolia

As of 2003 there were 688 primary and secondary schools with about 528,000 students and 20,725 teachers. There were 32 vocational and technical training centers with 20,000 students and over 800 teachers.[4]

The earliest example of public education in Mongolia is a secular school set up by the Buddhist monk and poet Dazan Ravjaa at the Khamar Monastery in the 1820s.

Schools in sum centers usually have boarding schools for pupils from the countryside. Many of these sum schools only go to the eighth grade, pupils who want to complete the secondary school then have to attend schools in the aimag centers.

In Ulaanbaatar and cities like Erdenet there are private schools, though of mixed quality. Ulaanbaatar also has some foreign-language themed public schools, for example for Russian, Chinese, Turkish, English, and German.

In Ulaanbaatar, there are several private secondary schools that have instruction in English and Mongolian, and just a few that have English-only instruction.

Further and Higher education

Universities in Mongolia

Mongolian national universities are all spin-offs from the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology.

The broad liberalization of the 1990s led to a boom in private institutions of higher education.

National University of Mongolia (sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_Mongolia)

The National University of Mongolia (short: NUM; Mongolian Монгол Улсын Их Сургууль, Mongol Ulsyn Ikh Surguul) is the oldest University in Mongolia. It hosts twelve schools and faculties in Ulan Bator, and runs branches in the Zavkhan and Orkhon Aimags. Approximately one third of the academically educated Mongolians have graduated from NUM.

During socialism, the University served as a training center for the party elite. Education was paid for and strictly controlled by the state. After democratization it gradually changed into a more modern university. In 1995 it started to offer bachelor's, master's, and PhD programs.

In 2006 there were 12,000 students enrolled, including 2000 graduate students. The University offers over 80 undergraduate and graduate programs, mostly using Mongolian language as the medium of instruction.

Its web site is in theory at http://www.num.edu.mn but is not always accessible.

Mongolian University of Science and Technology (sourced from its web site at http://www.must.edu.mn/emust/)

The Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST), one of the Leading State Universities of the country, is situated on its extensive campuses in Ulaanbaatar City, Darkhan, Erdenet, Uburkhangai, and Sukhbaatar provinces.

MUST is made up of 17 professional schools, colleges and 3 research institutes and 36 experimental and technology centers whose faculty offer educational opportunities to students ranging from first-year undergraduates through doctoral-level candidates in engineering, technology, and others. Currently about 20,000 students including international students are enrolling and enjoying life at the university, and and 120 professors and over 1000 staff are engaged in student training, educational and research activities, university administration and management.

Polytechnics in Mongolia

For some other institutions see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Mongolia

Education reform

Schools

In June 2011, VSO Mongolia published a report on the Mongolian Education Sector which looked at progress, challenges and future priorities given the current socio-economic changes in Mongolia.[1] The report, which was launched to commemorate IYV+10 (10th Anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers, showed that there were numerous opportunities presented by the high level of economic growth, which has brought more resources into the sector. However, it showed that as Mongolia emerges onto the world stage, the disparity between rich and poor could leave many marginalised when it comes to benefitting from education. The report argued that the Mongolian Government has made an immense effort to develop the education sector at all levels since its transition to democracy with an admirable openness and willingness to progress towards its further development. This was particularly noted in accommodating for Mongolia's unique country characteristics such as the nomadic lifestyle, low population density in remote areas, and striving towards meeting international standards.

The report also showed that Mongolian people have always valued education over other attributes and have habitually made it their priority to educate their children. Due to these efforts, the findings showed that overall the parents were satisfied with their children’s progress at school. However, there were still many challenges that remain to be tackled. The findings also showed that amongst all stakeholders, there was an overwhelming majority who gave a negative response when asked about the performance of the sector at present; this was in terms of the quality of education (68%), Access to education (83%), and the inclusiveness of the system for disadvantaged groups (76%).

In concluding what VSO Mongolia achieved in its education programme over the last 20 years, the report showed that international volunteers have and continue to make a significant impact in the development of the education sector. Stakeholders who took part in this research generally held a positive view of the role and influence of the international volunteers, with 67% of respondents regarding them as having played a crucial role in education. While just over half of respondents had experience of working with international volunteers, 94% of all respondents were willing to work with them in the future. At this stage in Mongolia’s development, the relevance and impact of international volunteering was highlighted when addressing these challenges and future priorities in taking the education sector forward to achieve its ultimate goal of Education for All.

Administration and finance

Schools

Mongolia’s educational administrative structure is organized with MECS as the national and central authoritative body, followed by subsequent administrative bodies, such as aimags (provinces) education boards, sums (districts) education offices, and school councils. At the district level (sums), the administrative office of the sum governor is responsible for appointing directors of schools and and overseeing school management.

Information society

ICT Vision - 2010

In 1999, Mongolia held a National ICT Summit, closely followed in February 2000 by “ National Vision for ICT development of Mongolia up to 2010”, the first ICT policy paper for Mongolia, ratified by parliament. It recognized that ICT was an important tool for development in Mongolia. Shortly after the "National ICT Committee" was created, as was the "Mongolian Information Development Application Scheme" (MIDAS). MIDAS is now a committee of experts that amongst others, supports the National ICT Committee by sharing expert knowledge.

ICT Vision-2010 has three major components: a government-legislation framework, a business-economy framework and a people-society framework. Within the people-society framework, the goal is to “create a favourable environment for Mongolian citizens to communicate freely among themselves and with the world community, ensure opportunities for their equal and active participation in social life and improve quality of people’s lives.”

E-Mongolia National Program 2005-2012

The vision of the eMongolia National Program for 2012 was to establish the information society and the foundation of the Knowledge based society in Mongolia by enhancing extensive application of ICT in all society sectors. The program is the Government mid-term strategy for ICT development and is desigend around 22 sub-strategies, one of those is e-education strategy

ICT in education initiatives

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (MOECS) has used Vision-2010 as a model to implement ICTs in the education sector, developing an action plan which was approved in 2001. MOECS’s vision for ICT in education had four major components, covering areas of:

• Training - the full utilization of ICT in each educational level’s curriculum and contents in order to introduce ICT possibilities and gain knowledge and skills in using it.
• Hardware - Supply of hardware allows the conduct of training according to different level of modern ICT development and provides possibilities of free access to information.
• Teaching staff - Supply of teaching staffs which have the capabilities to develop themselves in terms of their own knowledge and skills in line with rapid development of ICT.
• Information ware - Creation of possibilities of available and accessible information service by establishing educational information database and network.

Within the E-Mongolia Program, the E-education axis include the following goals

Goal 1: Development of the mechanism for the managementof information technology policy and the administration of effective education

• Create an administration system and the shared application of educational resources in order to reduce duplicate investment, and use educational resources efficiently and for the maximum benefit of students;
• Enhance the capabilities of organizations and agencies involved in the development of education technology, whose duties are to promote and support student centered learning;

Goal 2: Development of an equitable information infrastructure for education-Expedite the development and provision of equitable telecommunication infrastructure service

• Develop an effective IT network for education at a reasonable price;
• Provide complete IT utility in every school in order to move into e-school. By 2012 every 10 student in a high school will have a PC. By 2012 every teacher will have a PC (10% of them notebook);
• Transfer every content to electronic means;

Goal 3: Development of the human resources

• Develop and train personnel and education related human resource at all levels to increase their ICT knowledge and skills;
• Accelerate the production of graduates, improve the quality of training and develop advanced ICT labor in order to support the rising demand;
• Increase the production of postgraduates (masters and PhDs);
• Develop programs for training and life-long learning for knowledge workers;
• Extended utilization of distance learning centresto develop public ICT literacy
• Establish multimedia centres in order to develop human resource
• Introduce international standards of ICT education
• Increase the production and training of ICT engineers, qualified specialists in order to success in the world software market
• Develop and improve educational curriculum that supports students in the use of ICT in order to increase the knowledge
• Establish a model e-school to support e-schools through Mongolia
• Extended utilization of ICT in “English as a second language”program to obtain world recognized education in Mongolia.
• Promote and support R&D which focuses on the development of knowledge, learning processes, and achievement trough knowledge.

Goal 4: Development of the public ICT literacy

• Introduce International Computer Driving License for public ICT literacy
• Create internet access in the public (community) areas: library, post office, recreation centre etc.
• Support private sector investment in the development of e-education

The principal limiting factor in integrating ICT into education in Mongolia has been that the focus has been on the teaching of ICT as a subject, rather than the way in which it can be integrated to enhance the teaching/learning process.

Virtual initiatives in schools

A set of initiatives and projects have been developed in the country to support mainly non-formal rural distance education. Though the use of ICT was limited due to the fact that internet broadband connection is not yet diffused in the country, especially out of the capital.

The initiatives and experimentations undertaken so far try to build on the well consolidate network of non-formal education centres developed thanks to the National Centre of Non-formal and distance Education (NCNFDE) and the experience gained in distance education couldbe a good basis for ICT supported initiative once the infrastructure are fully available.

Some examples include the Literacy Through Distance Learning Programme of the NCNFDE.

This program provides basic and advanced literacy skills training to out-of-school youth and illiterate or semi-illiterate youth and adults through distance education. The programme has been implemented in 12 of the country's 21 aimags (provinces), namely Bayan-Ulgii, Khovd, Uvs, Zavkhan, Bayan-Khongor, Sukhbaatar, Tuv, Umnugobi, Dundgobi, Dornogobi, Khentii and Gobi-Altai. It benefit 3,500 illiterates and 4,500 semi-literates per year.

Other relevant initiatives can be found at http://www.literacyportal.net/artc/mongolia.html

Internet Based Distance Education Project

In 2001 the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) funded the Internet Based Distance Education Project in Mongolia. The project initiated selected Mongolian institutions into the processes of research, development and experimentation with web-based instruction methods and technologies for distance education. In particular, the project aimed at introducing internet-based distance education methodology and experiemet it to selected mongolian learning communities. The project offered experimental web-based instructional courses on specific subjects such as English language, IT and computer skills, gender issues and legal rights. A parallel aim of this project is to encourage and facilitate the educational authority within the country to formulate a vision and strategic plan for technology-based distance education, within the national education policy framework.

This project was aimed at benefiting the following categories of people in Mongolia:

• People learning English, gender education, Information Technology
• Grade five to ten school children
• Pupils passing math and English based entrance exams
• Self-learners on above mentioned fields
• School dropped children and others

Virtual initiatives in post-secondary education

E-Open school of Mongolian University of Science and Technology offer advanced training courses (as well as bachelor and master courses) through distance education.

See the Health Sciences University of Mongolia - but there is doubt as to how active this is.

Lessons learnt

General lessons

Several experiences exist in distance education, especially in order to come up with drop out in rural areas and ensure universal coverage of education. Also interest can be found in the literature on the issue of ICT integration in Education. However distance education is not yet much supported by the web due to infrastructural shortage and there are no virtual schools and online learning programme at school level.

Given the consolidated experience, they might be easily built in the future once the costs drop down.

References

Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences

Brenda McDonald, Appropriate Distance Education Media in the Philippines and Mongolia

Batchuluun Yembuu Open And Distance Education In Mongolia: Possible Relevance of Open Access

Unesco Office in Bangkok: Mongolia

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For OER policies and projects in Mongolia see Mongolia/OER

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