Vouchers for teacher education (non) reform in Mongolia: Transitional, postsocialist, or antisocialist explanations?

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 49, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 148-171

  Steiner Khamsi, Gita ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 20744445820     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/428103     Document Type: Review

References (82)

1. Drawing from David Tyack and Larry Cuban's (1995) categorization, I distinguish between the levels of "policy talk," "policy action" (policy enactment), and "policy implementation," while discussing the Mongolian voucher model. David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering towards Utopia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995);
2. see also Larry Cuban, "How Schools Change Reform," Teachers College Record 99, no. 3 (1998): 453-77.
3. For example, Theodor Sander and Ya. Narmandakh presented (with funding from the German Academic Exchange Service) suggestions on how to improve Mongolian in-service teacher education. Theodor Sander and Ya. Narmandakh, In-service Teacher Education: Report to the ADD (Ulaanbaatar: MOSTEC, 1998).
4. Ya. Narmandakh compiled a report, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), on the Mongolian system, comparing it to in-service teacher education models in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Scotland. Ya. Narmandakh, Bolovsrolyn salbaryn khogjliin tosol; deed bolovsrolyn chanaryg saijruulakh; khamtyn ajillagaag bekhjuulekh: Bagsh naryn mergejil deeshluulekh (Education sector cooperation project, enhancing the quality of higher education and improvement of cooperation: Professional development of teachers) (Ulaanbaatar: ADB, 1999).
5. Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Ines Stolpe, "De- and Recentralization Reform in Mongolia: Tracing the Swing of the Pendulum," Comparative Education 41, no. 1 (2004): 29-53.
6. In Mongolia, the assistant principals used to be referred to as "head teachers"; since 2003, they tend to be labeled "school managers." Assistant principals oversee the various departments of grade 1-10 schools (e.g., primary school department, foreign language department, math and science department, etc.) and are in charge of advising the teachers in their department. See Seth Spaulding, T. Boldsukh, D. Munkjargal, and O. Otgonjargal, Improvement of Educational Management and Supervision for Graduate Preparation Programs in Educational Administration: Report to the ADB (Ulaanbaatar: MOSTEC, 1999).
7. The category "administrators" included governors, directors of the social policy units, and directors of the Education and Culture Centers at the province level. The visits and interviews covered schools in the following provinces: Arkhangai, Bayanhongor, Tuv, Dondgobi, Omnigobi, Hovd, Bayanulgii, and Dornod.
8. The statistical material on in-service training is presented in the annual evaluation reports of the "School 2001" project, available at the Mongolian Education Alliance.
9. For "involved researcher," see Norbert Elias, Involvement and Detachment (New York: Blackwell, 1987).
10. "School 2001" lasted from 1998 to 2001 and focused on in-service training at school and regional levels. "Teacher 2005" (2002-5) emphasized preservice teacher education reform, on the one hand, and strengthening of educational research capacity at MA and PhD levels, on the other. Both projects were funded by MFOS. The first was implemented by MFOS, whereas the second was implemented by the State Pedagogical University (in 2003 renamed Mongolian National University of Education) in its central campus in Ulaanbaatar and its regional branches in Hovd, Bayanulgii, Arkhangai, and Dornod.
11. Erkh means "right"; bichig means "document."
12. The first two privatization laws (July and October 1991) introduced the term erkhiin bichig (unabbreviated: khorongo oruulaltyn erkhiin bichig) to describe the red and blue vouchers. In colloquial language, however, the red and blue privatization vouchers were referred to as tasalbar or talon and not, as in the case of teacher education vouchers, as erkhiin bichig or vautsher. Similarly, the vouchers or food stamps during the food rationalization period of the economic crisis in the early 1990s were termed differently (cart, or card). A more detailed description of the privatization laws has been provided by Susanne Schmid, Mongolia in Transition: The Impact of Privatization on Rural Life (Saarbrücken: Bielefelder Studien für Entwicklungssoziologiè, 1995).
13. This figure is based on the school map of Dornogobi Province (school year 2000-2001), which is an average-size province with 12 districts (soms) in southeast Mongolia. The capital of the province hosts four schools, and the remaining 15 schools are located in the 12 districts. The closest distance to the next school is 14.6 miles and the farthest is 73.3 miles.
14. S. Lhagve, Final Report on "Internal Market in Education": Think Tank Facility Project MON/07/131 (Ulaanbaatar: Ministry of Finance of Mongolia and UN Development Program (UNDP) Field Office in Mongolia, 1997), 3.
15. Ibid., 6.
16. Ibid., 15.
17. For example, N. Begz, renowned educational researcher, presents the introduction of choice and school vouchers as a global movement that has spread in other countries. N. Begz, "Globalchlalyn ueiin Mongol ulsyn bolovsrolyn khogjliin onol, argazuin undsen asundluud" (Theoretical and methodological issues of educational development in Mongolia in an era of globalization), Bolovsrol Sudlal 1, no. 1 (2001): 25-29.
18. Mongolia National Government, Joint Decree of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education of Mongolia, Number 62/125, Date; March 24, 1998 (Ulaanbaatar: Mongolia National Government, 1998);
19. and Mongolia National Government, National Program for Pre-service and In-service Training of Primary and Secondary Education Teachers, Appendix 1 to the Government Decree Number 120, Date: June 5, 2001 (Ulaanbaatar: Mongolia National Government, 2001).
20. Mongolia National Government, Joint Decree 1998, citations from sees. 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4.
21. In the same year, an amendment to the Education and Higher Education Laws was passed that listed teacher training as one of the new responsibilities of universities. These 1998 "Directions of Reforms in the Education Sector for 1997-2005" are described by Malcolm Innes-Brown, "Democracy, Education, and Reform in Mongolia: Transition to a New Order," in Education and Political Transition: Themes and Experiences in East Asia, ed. Mark Bray and Wing-On Lee (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, 2001), 77-99.
22. Citation from Mongolia National Government, Joint Decree 1998, sec. 2.2.
23. Mongolia National Government, Joint Decree 1998, sec. 2.5.
24. Mongolia National Government, National Program 2001, sec. 1, point 1.
25. Peter Sachsenmeier, Reformkonzeptionen der Lehrerbildung in der Sowjetunion (Teacher education reform concepts in the Soviet Union) (Weinheim und Basel: Beltz, 1978).
26. The sessions for preschool and primary school teachers were also offered in the regional branches of the State Pedagogical University: first in Arkhangai and later also in Dornod and Bayanulgii. See R. Sandshaasüren and I. Shernossek, Das Bildungswesen der Mongolischen Volksrepublik. Beiträge zur Pädagogik, Band 22 (The educational system in the Mongolian People's Republic) (Berlin: Volk und Wissen Volkseigener, 1981).
27. For an international comparative study of vouchers, see Martin Carnoy and Patrick J. McEwan, "Privatization through Vouchers in Developing Countries: The Cases of Chile and Colombia," in Privatizing Education: Can the Market Place Deliver Choice, Efficiency, Equity, and Social Cohesion ? ed. Henry M. Levin (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), 151-77.
28. The following study by McEwan presents several controversies that have accompanied large-scale voucher programs: Patrick J. McEwan, "The Potential Impact of Large-Scale Voucher Programs," Review of Educational Research 7, no. 2 (2000): 103-49.
29. Gita Steiner-Khamsi, "Innovation durch Bildung nach internationalen Standards?" (Innovation modeled after international standards?), in Innovation durch Bildung, ed. Ingrid Gogolin and Rudolph Trippelt (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2003), 141-62. The Ministry of Finance curbed government spending for education; the Ministry of Education reduced its state apparatus; the Education and Culture Centers (education authorities in the provinces) trained their methodologists, who no longer had access to other types of training; and the methodologists, ultimately, succeeded in reestablishing their authority as educational experts. Ironically, the only ones that did not directly benefit from the voucher system were the ones for whom the voucher system was initially developed-teachers.
30. David Phillips, "Toward a Theory of Policy Attraction in Education," in The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, ed. Gita Steiner-Khamsi (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 54-67.
31. Brandon A. Kohrt, Daniel J. Hruschka, Holbrook E. Kohrt, Nova L. Panebianco, and G. Tsagaankhuu, "Distribution of Distress in Post-socialist Mongolia: A Cultural Epidemiology of Yadargaa," Social Science and Medicine 58 (2004) : 471-85;
32. K. Griffin, "Social Policy in Kazakhstan during the Economic Transition," International Journal of Social Economics 26, nos. 1, 2, 3 (1999): 134-57.
33. World Bank, Mongolia Country Assistance Evaluation (Washington, DC: World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department, 2001).
34. The figures vary by 1 percent, depending on the sources used. I relied on the following three sources: MOSTEC, Mongolia Education Sector Strategy, 2000-2005 (Ulaanbaatar: MOSTEC, 2000), 9;
35. World Bank, Public Expenditure and Financial Management Review (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001), 128;
36. UNDP, Common Country Assessment for Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar: UNDP, 2000), 39.
37. According to the Innocenti Research Centre, the real public spending on education dropped in Russia by one-third and in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan by three-quarters or more. Innocenti Research Centre, After the Fall: The Human Impact of Ten Years of Transition (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 1999), 7.
38. Mongolia was admitted in February 1991 to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the ADB. For more information, see Ts. Batbayar, "Foreign Policy and Domestic Reform in Mongolia," Central Asian Survey 22, no. 1 (2003): 45-59.
39. A brief account of ADB's involvement in Mongolia's education sector reform can be found in the following article: John C. Weidman, "Developing the Mongolia Education Sector Strategy, 2000-2005: Reflections of a Consultant for the Asian Development Bank," Current Issues in Comparative Education 3, no. 2 (2002), http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cice.
40. Peter Boone, "Grassroots Macroeconomic Reform in Mongolia" Journal of Comparative Economics 18 (1994): 329-56, 330.
41. Ibid., 331-32.
42. Note that different methods are used to assess the reduction of external assistance as a percentage of the GDP in the early 1990s. See, e.g., the (much lower) figures provided by UNDP, Human Development Report-Mongolia 2000 (Ulaanbaatar: UNDP, 2000).
43. Ines Stolpe examined the impact that the shift from internationalist to international external assistance to Mongolia has had on education reforms in the 1990s, in particular in the area of rural school development and school dormitories. Ines Stolpe, "Erschaffung eines Drittweltlandes: Nomadenbildung in der Mongolei" (The creation of a third world country: Education of nomads in Mongolia), Tertium Comparationis 9, no. 2 (2003): 162-77.
44. Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Anh Nguyen, Seasonal and Permanent Migration in Mongolia: A Preliminary Assessment of Access and Quality of Education (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001), 8.
45. World Bank, Mongolia Public Expenditure and Financial Management Review (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002), 130.
46. Innes-Brown, "Democracy, Education, and Reform in Mongolia," 91.
47. According to Sandshaasüren and Shernossek (Das Bildungswesen), 180 schools and 161 dormitories were built between 1970 and 1977.
48. Uta Schöne, Die Entwicklung des Volksbildungswesens in der Mongolischen Volksrepublik, 1921-1971: Ein Beitrag zur Analyse der Grundprobleme der Kultur-und Bildungsrevolution in Asien (The development of the education system in the Mongolian People's Republic, 1921-1971: A contribution to the analysis of the fundamental problems related to the cultural and educational revolution) (dissertation, Humboldt University, Berlin/Germany, 1973).
49. In his sympathetic account of developments in Mongolia, William Mandel reports the following government statistic: "In 1926 there were 10,060 persons who could read and write . . ., and this represented considerable progress during the preceding five years." Schöne, however, reports that by the end of the 1920s only about 1,000 children were enrolled in state schools, as opposed to almost 18,955 attending monastic education. A similar distortion of historical facts applies to adult literacy figures: at the end of the First Five-Year Plan (1948-52) the achievement of universal literacy was prematurely proclaimed and celebrated. The proclamation was revoked 10 years later, when the socialist government embarked on two "revolutionary culture campaigns" (1960-61 and 1962-63) to eradicate illiteracy, alcoholism, epidemics, and vandalism. William Mandel, "Outer Mongolia's Five-Year Plan," Far Eastern Survey (June 15, 1949), 140-44, 143;
50. Schöne, Die Entwicklung des Volksbildungsuiesens, 25.
51. See MOSTEC, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and World Bank, Mongolian National Report on Education for All Assessment - 2000 (Ulaanbaatar: MOSTEC, 2000).
52. Caroline Humphrey and David Sneath, The End of Nomadism? Society, State, and the Environment of Inner Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 180ff.
53. Georges Korsun and Peter Murrell, "Politics and Economies of Mongolia's Privatization Program," Asian Survey 15, no. 5 (1995): 472-86.
54. Mongolia National Statistical Office, 2000 Population and Housing Census: The Main Results (Ulaanbaatar: National Statistical Office in cooperation with the UN Population Fund, UN Statistics Division, and Australia-Mongolia Development Cooperation Program, 2001).
55. Ibid., 58.
56. Figures from the Economic, Monitoring, and Assessment Department of the Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, in Steiner-Khamsi and Nguyen, Seasonal and Permanent Migration in Mongolia, 50.
57. Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, Mongolian Foundation for Open Society, and UNESCO, Mongolian Book Survey (Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Foundation for Open Society/Soros Foundation, 2001), 51.
58. This is not to suggest that the informal economy during socialist times has not become an object of study. In his comparative analysis of informal economy activities in the 15 Soviet republics, Byung-Yeon Kim found that the average Soviet household expenditure in the informal economy (as a share of total household expenditure) was 23 percent in the period 1969-90. Byung-Yeon Kim, "Informal Economy Activities of Soviet Households: Size and Dynamics," Journal of Comparative Economics 31 (2003): 532-51.
59. See Christopher M. Hann, ed., Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in Eurasia (London: Routledge, 2002);
60. Katherine Verdery, The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Postsocialist Transylvania (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003);
61. Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economics after Socialism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002);
62. Ruth Mandel and Caroline Humphrey, Markets and Moralities. Ethnographies of Postsocialism (Oxford: Berg, 2002).
63. See, in particular, David Sneath's chapter "Mongolia in the 'Age of the Market': Pastoral Land-Use and the Development Discourse," in Mandel and Humphrey, Markets and Moralities, 191-210.
64. World Bank, Mongolia Public Expenditure and Financial Management Review, iv.
65. David Sneath, "Reciprocity and Notions of Corruption in Contemporary Mongolia," Mongolian Studies 25 (2002): 85-99. Sneath's study was conducted in cooperation with the Sociological Research Center of the Mongolian Institute of Administration and Management Development (IAMD).
66. Sneath, "Mongolia in the 'Age of the Market,'" 86.
67. Shovgor means "conical" or "tapered," and the term, according to Sneath, emerged in the socialist period, when it was used as a euphemism for giving vodka by referring to the shape of the bottle. Ibid., 87.
68. Citation from the article "Emch bagsh hoyort avilga og. Yaadag yum be?" (Give doctors and teachers bribes! Why not?) published in Odriin Sonin, December 19, 2001,
69. and quoted in Sneath, "Mongolia in the 'Age of the Market,'" 96.
70. Gita Steiner-Khamsi, S. Tumendelger, and Ines Stolpe, "Bolovsrolyn Tuluukh Nuudel" (Schoolrelated migration), Shine Tol'45, no. 4 (2003): 82-112.
71. Alena Ledeneva coined the term "suspended punishment" for describing the unwritten rules in the Soviet Union that residents made frequent use of for exercising a degree of freedom in their daily lives. Alena V. Ledeneva, Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
72. See also Johan Rasanayagam, "Market, State and Community in Uzbekistan: Reworking the Concept of the Informal Economy" (working paper, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, 2003).
73. Christian Giordano and Dobrinka Kostova, "The Social Production of Mistrust," in Hann, Postsocialism, 74-91, 74.
74. Robert Cowen, "Late Modernity and the Rules of Chaos: An Initial Note on Transitologies and Rims," in Learning from Comparing; New Directions in Comparative Educational Research, ed. Robin Alexander, Patricia Broadfoot, and David Phillips (Oxford: Symposium, 1999), 73-88.
75. The belief in a period of "socialist transformation" or "socialist transition" also prevailed in other socialist countries and was in some cases differentiated by region. In the People's Republic of China, e.g., Central China embarked on the collectivization campaign during the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), whereas Xinjian and Inner Mongolia completed the socialist reconstruction only by 1959. Owing to the rebellions against the Chinese government in Tibet, Mao postponed the "democratic reform" in Tibet to the Third Five-Year Plan (1963-67), and collectivization in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) began a decade later than in China. The "transition" period in Central China lasted, according to Chinese historical accounts, 4 years in Xinjian, 10 years in Inner Mongolia, and 14 years in TAR. See Catriona Bass, Education in Tibet: Policy and Practice since 1950 (London: Zed, 1998), 29ff.
76. As mentioned above, earlier attempts at collectivization failed. Peter Boone, "Grassroots Macroeconomic Reform," 334, provides a few figures on the successful collectivization campaigns between 1955 and 1960: "In the early 1950s, 85 percent of livestock was privately owned, but as of 1960 only 22 percent was privately owned. The cooperatives [of herders] were gradually consolidated, and the average number of employees per cooperative reached 1,835 in 1960."
77. Karen Barkey and Mark von Hagen, eds., After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), 188.
78. Iveta Silova, "Adopting the Language of the New Allies," in The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending, ed. Gita Steiner-Khamsi (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 75-87.
79. For example, a proportion of the ADB's third loan has been assigned to rural school development. The World Bank highlights in its Mongolia Public Expenditure and Financial Management Review the increase in inequality between urban and rural areas (xi). See also Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Ines Stolpe, "Non-traveling 'Best Practices' for a Traveling Population: The Case of Nomadic Education in Mongolia," European Educational Research Journal, forthcoming.
80. After the threat of a nationwide strike of teachers, the government raised teacher salaries by 25 percent in 2003. Teacher salaries and, in general, the salaries of civil servants, however, are still low compared to international benchmarks. Real GDP per capita was $403 in 2000, and the average public sector salaries were 1.4 times the per capita GDP. In contrast, the Fast-Track Initiative set the benchmark of 3.5 as a multiple of per capita GDP for annual teacher salaries. This means that the annual teacher salaries in Mongolia should be on the average 3.5 times (rather than the current 1.4 times) the per capita GDP. World Bank, Mongolia Public Expenditure and Financial Management Review, iii;
81. Barbara Bruns, Alain Mingat, and Ramahatra Rakotomalala, Achieving Universal Primary Education by 2015 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003).
82. Caroline Humphrey, "Does the Category 'Postsocialist' Still Make Sense?" in Hann, Postsocialism, 13.