Education Without Borders: The Mongolian Schools That Move

An example of a Mongolian nomadic school. (Courtesy of UNICEF)

Across the ‘green desert’ of the Mongolian steppe, nearly 30% of the population live a nomadic or semi-nomadic life. In the rural provinces, schooling looks very different to what exists within the cities. Here, families move with their herds according to the rhythm of the seasons, and demonstrate what would happen if school didn’t stand still.

Historically, the government responded to this lifestyle by separating children from their families, and sending the young to boarding schools in distant provincial towns. Whilst this helped achieve a 97% literacy rate, the cost was more than just a ballooning state budget. The geographical relocation of thousands of children was a disturbance of cultural proportions. The emotional impact of schooling, something we often take for granted in the UK, was felt across generations. In many cases parents would need to make a choice between an education for their children or parting with a nomadic way of life followed for thousands of years. However, in recent decades, there have been alternative solutions in Mongolia which have arisen, that attempt to reimagine how education and the environment interact. What has resulted are schools which travel, with calendars that shift, and technologies that adapt to the lives of communities. Mongolia’s nomadic schools provide an interesting case study of what education can be when it starts from the lives people actually lead, instead of from a standardised starting point.

Adapting to Context

Modern education systems often treat the environment as something to be worked around. Within Mongolian rural communities, it is treated as something to be worked with. Mobile classrooms travel with families, whilst at the same time distance learning is delivered by radio or solar-powered tablets. Children attend formal lessons during the stationary winter months, and learn from their environment the rest of the year. These models are tailored to the context in imaginative and provisional ways.

For herder children, learning doesn’t begin or end with the school tent. They learn to observe weather patterns, care for animals, as well as how to traverse the vast and unmarked terrain. This knowledge is vital to their way of life. It is also often invisible to systems that count only what can be written down, tested, and compared. In this respect, the education of Mongolian nomadic communities encourages us to think about what counts as a learning environment. The idea that education must occur within four walls of a designated space is not universal, it is something which has evolved out of modern societal constraints.

A photo inside the school ger (yurt) of a rural nomadic community. (Courtesy of UNESCO)

That being said, there are still considerable challenges. Firstly, resourcing these remote , underfunded communities is difficult. Morgan & Sengedorj state that even when education does reach the steppe, it often carries urban perspectives. School kits of pictures of traffic lights and supermarkets, materials that bear little relation to herder life. They suggest that content must adapt alongside structure, and mustn’t fail to connect with children’s lived experiences. In addition, human resourcing remains a key issue for rural schools in Mongolia, with significant difficulties arising from hiring outside of these nomadic communities. This raises important questions about the scalability of taking such a bold responsive approach to such a significant educational challenge.

What Can This Teach Us?

For those outside of Mongolia, it’s easy to see this as an unusual curiosity to an unusual situation. But that would miss the important lessons which can be taken. Education systems can respond to life, rather than requiring life to adjust around a system. If we designed schools around the pulse of family life what might change?

For one, calendars might become more flexible, shifting with local need rather than fixed globally. As well, classrooms might expand into kitchens, gardens, and neighbourhoods. In addition, curricula might promote local knowledge, environmental literacy, and local history. Finally, assessment could value participation and situate itself in understanding, not just abstract recall.

When the school day ends on the Mongolian steppe, there isn’t a corridor, or a bell, nor a push out of the school gates. But there is learning layered within a local culture. Mongolia’s nomadic schools prove that education doesn’t always need to stay in one place, and that our assumptions about what school is, might just keep us from seeing what could be.

Further Reading

Batjargal, B. and Dondogdulam, T. (2018) Mongolia case study: the evolving education needs and realities of nomads and pastoralists. Background paper prepared for the 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report: Migration, displacement and education: building bridges, not walls. Paris: UNESCO. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000266056

Morgan, J. & Sengedorj, T. (2023) Practitioner perspectives on the challenges of implementing ‘alternative’ early childhood education (ECE) provision for nomadic children in Mongolia. Children and youth services review. [Online] 147. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740923000439?ref=cra_js_challenge&fr=RR-1

Steiner-Khamsi, G. & Stolpe, I. (2005) Non-traveling ‘Best Practices’ for a traveling population: the case of nomadic education in Mongolia. European educational research journal EERJ. [Online] 4 (1), 22–35. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240794579_Non-Traveling_'Best_Practices'_for_a_Traveling_Population_The_Case_of_Nomadic_Education_in_Mongolia