During 1990s, Mongolia experienced transition from centrally planned system to decentralized system following the collapse of the USSR. The country became independent after 70 years and reforms were taking place in every sector promoting democratic movement.
The education system had experienced multiple reforms including decentralization of school management and curriculum reforms. While those reforms provided opportunities to local government and schools to reflect local needs, they also faced the increase roles and responsibilities. During the course of reforms, Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports (MECSS) instituted policies promoting ICT use for educational development. For example,Education Master Plan (2006-2015) promoted Internet access to all schools and teacher training using ICT. [1]Specifically, in rural areas, there were more investments in developing safer, hospitable and energy efficient primary schools. [2]More recently, the Mongolian government included the use of ICT as a tool to promote lifelong education in the Basic Education Action Plan (2016-2020), specifically stating that “ICT can be utilized as learning tool to contribute to solve regional issues including fostering lifelong learning skills of citizens.”
Since 2004, the Yamaguchi-Takada Laboratory has been involved in educational development in Mongolia in close collaborations with central and local government, educational experts, and school teachers. These collaborations particularly focusing on quality teacher training activities using appropriate technologies reflecting local needs as teachers are the main sources of information to students where schools are only equipped with limited learning materials and supplemental facilities. Our collaboration has been diverse ranging from rehabilitation of rural schools and training of school managers and teachers, monitoring and evaluation ICT component of Fast Track Initiatives (FTI-ICT), sustainable ICT use in teacher training and development of teaching materials, to strengthening STEM education through localized teacher training using ICT. In implementing these projects, we worked closely with the local experts, schools and teachers, which helped us to find out the best solutions for the improvement of Mongolian education. The project map is shown as below.
Project and Research map
Our collaborative activities in Mongolia had evolved over 15 years. As the successful completion of previous projects, Professor Yamaguchi was awarded the “Polar Star” medal and Honorary Medal of Khentii Province in 2014 and 2015 respectively. And Prof. Takada was awarded the Bayankhongor Government Award in 2014. In 2017, “Mongolian News”and “Century News”, national newspapers, reported that Mongolian education experienced the wave of ICT contributing in quality improvement of teaching in basic education.
The following sections under the same tab illustrate the summary of our projects.
Reference
[1] Government of Mongolia. (2006). Mongolia Education Master Plan 2006-2015. Ulaanbaatar. Retrieved from http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Mongolia/Mongolia Education Master Plan 2006-2015.pdf
[2] Engel, J., Prizzon, A., & Amgaabazar, G. (2014). From decline to recovery: post- primary education in Mongolia. Retrieved July 10, 2015, from http://www.developmentprogress.org/decline-recovery-post-primary-education- mongolia
