Challenges

When schools and kindergartens closed in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Mongolia responded swiftly in order to maintain educational services by transforming all levels of classroom teaching into a virtual, televised format. This shift in educational modality affected total of 900,000 children in pre-primary and general education. A study conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed that the tele-lessons often failed to capture the learner’s attention and lacked engagement, resulting in increased risk of learning loss. 2021 statistics from the Mongolian Ministry of Education and

Science (MoES) highlight that 178,577 children in general education, roughly one third, have experienced learning loss due to school closure and 47,478 children did not return after schools reopened on 1 March 2021. Moreover, many other vital aspects of the distance learning environment were still absent, such as a learning management system for the pre-primary and general education sector, which further exacerbated the impact of COVID-19.

Toward a Solution

Against this backdrop, UNICEF, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)launched a joint initiative led by UNICEF to support critical education services during school and kindergarten closures with funding from the UN Multi-PartnerTrust Fund, as well as the Government of Japan. The joint project produced and delivered 104 exemplary interactive educational contents designed to supplement ongoing tele-lessons with a learner-centred approach using highly visualmultimedia elements. To ensure access for all children, the interactive contentswere made available also in the ethnic minority languages of Kazakh and Tuvan,as well as in sign language, and they were also adapted to meet the needs of visually impaired children. This initiative presents digital learning opportunities for Kazakh and Tuvan people to learn in their own mother tongue, to safeguard their language and culture and to progress towards their academic fulfilment. The initiative is not limited to ethnic minorities in Mongolia but more broadly to the Kazakh and Tuvan people of Kazakhstan, as well as those living in Kyrgyzstan, Russia and China.

Since the launch of the interactive content in November 2020, the site has received almost 360,000 pageviews, boosting confidence that expanding the initiative to the entire curriculum would be a resounding success. UNICEF, with the funding support of Maßvoll Stiftung, under the aegis of the Fondation de Luxembourg, is further expanding the interactive contents with 60 new modules for pre-primary and primary education and a pilot test of a full-feature game designed for a mobile platform for the upcoming 2022-2023 academic year.

Although UNICEF Mongolia is steadily expanding the interactive contents, content development requires significant time and funding. On the other hand, local capacity to implement such projects is limited to a handful of specialized content developers. For the initiative to successfully become the foundation of self-directed learning for children would depend ultimately on a sufficient number of contents being available for each unit of the official curriculum. Therefore, in the long run this has the potential to become a cross-country good practice for children’s digital learning, and to be replicated through South-South exchanges.

In addition, to address the learning needs of remote herder families and underprivileged children without access to TV or the Internet,UNICEF has developed audio content utilizing the teaching by storytelling method. This initiative transforms learning objectives into scenarioand story-based learning to create empathy and personal meaning that drives engagement and accelerates the time to expertise on a given task through simulation of learning through experience. As a result, 30 exemplary audio contents have been developed for children aged 4 to 7 and the contents have been disseminated through audio devices to 1,300children in four target provinces and one district of Ulaanbaatar. The content were also disseminated through Mongolian National Radio, as well as children’s content apps such as Marchaahai, with an access rate of more than 500,000 users. Based on the positive feedback of the beneficiaries, UNICEF further expanded the initiative with a further 60 contents and reached 2,500 children in Bayankhongor, Govi-Altai, Zavkhan,Umnu-Govi province and in the Bayanzurkh district of Ulaanbaatar, by distributing custom audio players. In contrast to the standardized curriculum, which often stymies the learner’s creativity, these digital learning contents are intended to attract the learner’s attention and enthusiasm with a more natural aesthetic experience.

The apparent absence of a standardized learning management system(LMS) in the Mongolian general education sector has taken a toll on teachers and children, with scrambled efforts to come up with ad-hoc solutions to maintain essential educational services through distance education. Hence, UNICEF, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science, has implemented a provisional solution to upgrade the current educational content delivery portal from econtent.edu.mn to Medle.mn,an integrated system that provides key LMS features such as user segregation, assessment, communication, grading and reporting, which dramatically improved current capacity to enable effective digital learning.UNICEF will continue to provide support for the Government of Mongolia to build on the success of the project and incorporate digital innovation in learning for all children, as well as to share its experiences with other countries in the global South. These initiatives are in accordance with Vision 2050 policy and the Education Sector Medium-TermDevelopment Plan 2030 to support Open Education.