Open and Distance Education in Mongolia Experience and Challenges

G.ombosuren Batbold

Director of Department of General Education, MECS, Mongolia

蒙古有着大片的草原，而人口稀少。57.0%的人口生活在城市（其中一半生活在首都乌兰巴托），其余则生活在农村。2004年，蒙古在全球人类发展指数排名第114。远程教育是新世纪最具特色的教育方式。远程教育形式灵活，在不同国家用于非正规的基础教育、高等教育和专业教育。远程教育在满足蒙古多样的教育需求方面拥有巨大潜力。根据蒙古的经验，远程教育中学生的反馈非常重要，可根据反馈，对教学形式进行及时调整。今年来，远程教育还越来越广泛地运用于正规教育、职业教育和在职培训。互联网或网上远程教育是蒙古最主要的远程教育创新。蒙古政府最近开办了“教育电视”。虽然仍有若干问题存在，开放的远程教育已经在蒙古的正规与非正规教育中得到广泛运用。

Introduction

Mongolia is a country with vast steppe and is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. 57.0 percent of the population lives in urban areas (half of these live in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar) while 43.0 percent in rural. Fertility rate has fallen 2 times in the last 15 years. GDP per capita was 384 USD in 1999 and Mongolia is placed at 114 in the world for its human development index.

Educational rate of the population is comparatively higher than those of in other developing countries in the region, and according to the housing and population census of 2000, adult literacy rate was 97.8 percent (in which 97.5 percent is male and 98.0 percent is female). However, the children who dropped out of school in the beginning of the 1990's have already become “adult illiterates” that had not been stated before.

School-dropout as a negative phenomenon of the transition period in the 1990's has been decreasing regularly for the last few years, but this phenomenon still exists. For example, the school-dropout rate was highest in 1992-1993 with 8.8 percent; however this rate became 2.1% in the academic year of 2004-2005. The majority of the out of school children (81 percent) are in rural areas, and 71 percent of them are boys. Although, there are several reasons for school-dropout, a main reason is poverty. In rural areas, children tend to drop out of school to help their parents with livestock, but for the urban children the reasons are migration from rural areas and poverty.

Non-formal education as a type of open education was approved according to the Law of Education in 1991 and set up in order to provide equal opportunities to education services for the certain part of the population who are unable to get involved in formal education, especially for herdsmen, school-dropouts and youths.

In this paper, we are briefly introducing the experiences, challenges and the development of the open and distance education in Mongolia.

Distance Education Development in Mongolia

Distance learning is main feature of education for this new century. Distance education has proved a flexible and accommodating form of education, as the variety of applications in different countries illustrate, ranging from non-formal basic education to higher education and specialist professional development. Distance education has considerable potential for meeting diverse learning needs in Mongolia and suitable form of education access to the population who have a quite good literacy rate even sparsely living and weak of infrastructure.

Distance education is capable of reaching large numbers of remote learners and providing a structure to support isolated learners wherever they are, thus increasing access and equity in educational provision.

Currently, many projects and programs have been implemented on distance learning. For example: the project “Gobi Women” on non formal and distance education was jointly implemented by the Government of Mongolia and UNESCO, funded mostly by DANIDA (Danish International Development Assistance) in 1992-1996. For instance, a project “Learning for life” on distance learning, which was a continuation of the “Gobi Women” project, was implemented from 1997 to 2001, and more than 37.0 thousand people were involved. Now, the project “Literacy Education through Distance learning” is undergoing successfully in the remote areas, based on the previous experiences and achievements.

Success of implementations of these projects based on four basic principles important for success of non formal and distance education (Rassekh 1991):

1.        Integrating literacy with content of immediate interest or perceived usefulness or particular learners.

2.        participation by learners in identifying their needs and priorities.

3.        Creating local relevant materials, made available in a timely way when needed.

4.        Providing a sufficient and continuing supply of accessible reading materials, as new needs arise, to sustain and develop literacy skills.

In the beginning, teaching/learning materials were a combination of print and radio materials as well as local learning groups and visiting tutors, and family based education for the rural nomadic population, which relevant to the learners’ needs, knowledge and skills. Then TV or video lessons on the distance education were newly introduced and currently, more ICT-oriented CDs and VCD materials are used.

As we know, feedback is very important to the distance learning, which has being permanently considered during the above-mentioned distance education projects. For instance, delivering system such as i) a self-study textbook and handbook, ii) a radio-lesson, iii) a mobile-teacher, iv)  gathering, was used during the project “Learning for Life”. But in the recent years, the number of mobile-teachers is reducing, and learning materials are being distributed through NFE “Enlightenment” Centers.

Innovation of Distance Education

In the recent years, distance learning is being widely utilized in the field of education, vocational and in-service trainings, although it is a main form of non formal education. For example, “Secondary School English Education through the Distance Learning” and “in-service Distance Training of English Language Teachers”-radio/video based distance education pilot projects were implemented in 2003-2004.

The National Program on Distance Learning approved by the Government of Mongolia in 2002 was an important policy document for the development of open and distance education. The main goal of the Program is to establish a national system for distance education, which will help to increase formal and non formal education service access, quality and effectiveness of education and to develop life skills through access to lifelong learning. Within the frame of the Program, following objectives are being implemented:

-          to establish a Distance Learning policy coordination and management

-          to create a Distance Learning service and activities mechanism

-          to train Distance Learning specialists and develop human resource capacity

-          to establish in formation data base and technical environment for accessible, quality and effective Distance Learning

-          to select appropriate forms of Distance Learning training and develop and implement their curriculum and methodology

Internet based or online distance learning is one of the main forms of distance education innovations in Mongolia. Several universities and institutions started to use the internet based distance learning and there are several national companies that develop distance education software programs. However, delivering the internet based distance learning is more easily accessible in the urban areas than in the rural areas where computer supplies, power resource, and network connection to internet is not often available. To solve this problem, a two-way-distance learning network was established in 2004, which is being used in-service teacher training in rural areas and 15 aimag centers have recently been connected to this network.

As for the country that has no specialized TV channel on education, the Mongolian Government has paid special attention on establishing “Education TV”. The main goal of recently opened “Education TV” channel, which broadcasts its programs only in Ulaanbaatar city, is to conduct lessons for teachers and students of secondary schools, to disseminate a conception of new standards of primary and basic education, and to get possession of good practice of teaching/learning methodology. Nationwide broadcasting is expected to begin within the next year.

Challenges and ways to overcome

-          The cost of distance learning is obviously much higher than what we imagine. Although, by some researchers (1999, Robinson) distance education cost is affected by three factors 1 ) the scale (number of learners), 2) choice of media, 3) the amount of face-to-face and individual contact. However, as we know from our experience development of various learning materials costs the most. Especially, development of learning materials for those people who have low education levels and for those who have no education demands greater manpower and material cost.

-          Above mention from of distance learning has being widely used for school-dropout children. However there is misunderstanding among some parents who consider non-formal education as an easy method of gaining education that negatively attracts school drop-out children.

-          The shortage of human and technical resource, poor management and development of infrastructure negatively influence on sustainable development of distance learning and its effectiveness.

-          A long-term system of academic education had formed humans who have thinking of ready-use, no skills of self-studying by using learning materials that replace teachers and, no skills in maintaining personal relationship with others, and not prepared to think creatively and for decision making restrict an intensive development of distance learning.

Conclusions

The following achievements resulted by the fact that opens and distance education is established and is being used widely in both formal and non formal education sectors:

-          Approaches to environment of lifelong education for adults. Distance education is a form of education where the learner and teacher are for all or some of the time, and where learning materials take on some of the role of the teacher. Open learning refers to a set of values, such as the removal of obstacles to learning access and an emphasis on learner choice. Distance education is capable of reaching large numbers of remote learners and providing a structure to support isolated learners wherever they are, thus increasing access and equity in educational provision. It can provide good quality learning materials on a large scale and it can be a cost-effective way of providing education and training, if appropriately designed.

-          Underpinning new attitudes and values of relationship between learners and teachers. It had formed an opportunity to encourage for self-study, indeed “learning to learn without a teacher” to public.

-          Using radio and TV for distance learning has changed the people’s understanding of radio’s and TV’s as just the information tools.

-          Environment of team working and collaborative was established throughout the learners when the certain types of delivering education was introduced such as mobile-teacher and gathering.

-          Education usage has increased when students started to obtain the knowledge with appropriate form to their needs from learning materials, thus students are not just learning, they are rather learning to use them for their lives.

-          Participation of stakeholders and a civil society has increased. Result in opportunity to implement a training which conducted for a certain group of people such as a professional training, a field of agriculture etc and let people realize that distance education is not job for only education center and schools.

-          Forming a national structure and network for distance learning. Especially, NFE “Enlightenment” centers to provide the population with continuous education service, in every sum of the country is a clear example of that.

-          National capacity building for human resources. Form the experience of previously organized distance education trainings.

References

-          Department for National Statistics, Census for housing and population-2000

-          MECS. Statistical Book of MECS, 2002, Ulaanbaatar

-          MECS, UNESCO, Education for All Issues in Mongolia, 2003, Ulaanbaatar

-          MECS, ADB, Education Sector Development Program, 2003, Ulaanbaatar

-          National Center for Non Formal and Distance Education, Research on the Distance Learning to the Formal and Non Formal Education. 2005, Ulaanbaatar

-          Oyunchimeg.D and Robinson.B, Open and Distance Learning for Literacy in Mongolia 1999.

-          Rassekh.S, Perspective on Literacy: A Selected world Bibliography, 1991, UNESCO, Pairs.

-          Robinson.B and Solongo.A, The Gender Dismension of Economic Transition in Mongolia, 2000, Ulannabaatar

-          Robinson.K and Otgonbayar.G, Final Evaluation Report of “Learning for Life” Project, 2003, Ulannabaatar

-          United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Human Development Report: Mongolia 2003, Urban-Rural Disparities in Mongolia, 2004, Ulannabaatar