Geography and country information
Mongolia is a landlocked unitary sovereign state in East Asia. Mongolia is one of the world’s most sparsely populated country with approximately 1.6 million km2 land size and three million population . The country size is approximately four times as big as Japan (0.37 million km2), and is rich with natural resources such as forests, fish and a variety of natural minerals. Administratively, Mongolia is divided into 21 provinces (aimags), and the aimags are divided into the aimag center (soums). Soums are connected with bags, which are the smallest administrative unit in Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city in Mongolia, is home for about 45% of the country’s population. The official language is Mongolian.
Map of Mongolia
During 1990s, Mongolia experienced transition from centrally planned system to decentralized system with the dissolution of Soviet Union. The country became independent from its neighboring country after 70 years and reforms are taking place in every sector promoting democratic movement. According to Mongolia Human Development Report 2016, the improvement in the HDI in Mongolia has been remarkable since 1980 . Mongolia’s HDI rose from 0.524 in 1980 to 0.727 in 2014 which places within the high human development country category with a rank of 92th among 188 countries . In more detail, Mongolia has made significant progress in reducing poverty, improving education, promoting gender equality and other aspects.
Because of the abundant grassland resource, Mongolia has a long history of nomadic life. Nowadays, there are around 30% of Mongolian live in nomadic or semi nomadic lifestyle. This long tradition bred the unique culture of Mongolia. One of the important characteristics of Mongolian culture that can be traced back to the Mongol Empire is the eagerness to participate in competitions, Olympiads, and tournaments. This cultural element is usually tapped by school administrators and local-level education methodologists to motivate students, parents, teachers, and even schools to participate and get involved in any type of activity or initiative. Our team understands the need to communicate while respecting the local context and accepting how things may be done by one group of people that may be done differently for another group.
Mongolian horse racing
Yamaguchi-Takada laboratory has been involved in a variety of project activities in Mongolia since 2004. The Mongolian project team members of this laboratory is visiting Mongolia for organizing teacher training and monitoring mission regularly. We are introducing different type of information and communication technology for the improving the quality of education specifically trough the teacher training. We have successfully completed “Sustainable Use of ICT for Improving the Quality of Primary Education in Rural Mongolia” project funded by JICA (2012-2017) and the “Development and Distribution of ICT Teacher Training Materials for Sustainable Teacher Training in lower-secondary Schools in Mongolia” project founded by MEXT (2017-2018). You may find it interesting to take a glance at our latest activities by accessing the button below.
UNDP. (2016). Mongolia Human Development Report 2016: Building a Better Tomorrow: Including Youth in the Development of Mongolia. Retrieved from http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/mongolia-human-development-report-2016-building-better-tomorrow-including-youth-development