Bringing Education to Mongolia's Remote Regions

Mongolia spans 1.5 million square km and has 2.5 million people and globally, has the lowest density of population. Just over 40% of its citizens live in rural areas and 37%  in the capital city – Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia’s transition to a free market economy and parliamentary democracy in the early 1990s entailed drastic changes in the education system which impacted the country’s literacy rate negatively.

For the past twenty years many children; especially those living in urban areas, have not attended either primary or secondary school and therefore, enrollment figures have gradually decreased.

For many children in Mongolia’s remote and rural areas, herding activities and the nomadic lifestyle that comes with them mean little opportunity for education.

Grants from the Global Partnership for Education (totaling US$ 29.4 million) finance basic education programs in Mongolia’s remote regions. This funding, together with other donor grants, has contributed to the financing of 100 gers or tent-like mobile schools located in 21 rural provinces.

The gers operate in the summer months, and only then, for eight hours a day changing locations after 45 days of teaching. The ger schools also function as early childhood centers serving children aged five or six, as mandatory basic education in Mongolia starts at the age of six, and until September 2008, only at the age of seven.

Furthermore, the support of the GPE partners is geared towards improving the quality of education, acquiring better school equipment as well as extending the primary school cycle with one more year.

Also, the Global Partnership for Education funds have contributed to the training of 6000 new mathematics and technical education teachers, English-language teachers and primary school teachers.

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