What is school life like in Mongolia? (boy's view)

[question from Louisa, Sam, Ed, Danielle, Miles, Anna, John, Victoria, Jake, Tom B, Louisa and Patrick]

Carrying on from last week's edition, this week I asked Bud, an 11 year old schoolboy from Ulaanbaatar about what school life is like in Mongolia. As Bud had previously been in a school in England (his family worked in Manchester for a few years, before returning to Mongolia), his answers were particularly interesting:

1. What subjects do you learn at school? Maths, Advanced Maths (Bud's school is a specialist maths school), Mongolia, English, History, Biology, P.E, Art, Physics and Geometry.

2. What do you like about school, and what do you not like?

:) I really like seeing my friends at school. There are 46 people in my class, so I have many friends to play with. I like Maths, English, Mongolian and P.E lessons. My maths teacher is really nice and teaches very well.

:( My school has some very strict rules. We have to walk around the school following a particular system - we cannot take short cuts, and we always have to walk on the right-hand side of the corridors. Running and shouting is definitely not allowed! If we break these rules, or misbehave in class, then we are given punishments. Usually the punishment is to wash the classroom after the end of the school day. I have had to do this when I was late for school! If someone is really bad then they may be smacked by the teachers, or may even have to leave the school. Other things I do not like are that I have to wake up early for school (at 6am), and that sometimes the lessons can be boring.

3. What games do you play with your friends? I play basketball and PC games with my school friends. I really like to play football, but we are not allowed to do this - the teachers think that we will hit the ball into the windows. We have to play our football in secret, so that the staff do not see us! My favourite team is Manchester United.

4. What are the main differences between English and Mongolian schools? (N.B. Bud studied in England for a few years before returning to Mongolia).

In England I had one teacher who taught us all our classes, whereas in Mongolia I have a different teacher for each of my subjects. Also, my English school was smaller (200 children, not the 2000 that are in Bud's current school), but it had a bigger playground! In Mongolia boys and girls don't really play together, but in England they did. I think that English school is easier than Mongolian school. I had a real shock when I came back to Mongolia - the maths that we were learning in Mongolia was a lot more difficult than the maths that we were learning in England. I had to catch up quickly!

5. How long it takes for you to get to school?
I have to take a bus to school. It takes me about 5 minutes to walk to the bus stop. Then I take a 15 minute-bus ride. My bus drops me off very near to school.

This edition of Project Mongolia was brought to you with the help of Bud and his mother Urnaa. To both of them many thanks!

What is school life like in Mongolia?

[question from Louisa, Sam, Ed, Danielle, Miles, Anna, John, Victoria, Jake, Tom B, Louisa and Patrick]

Well, I’m not an expert on this subject, but luckily I found someone who was. I asked Ankhzaya, a local schoolgirl, about school life in Mongolia. Ankhzaya had some interesting answers:


1. What subjects do you learn at school?
Mathematics, Mongolian, Reading, Korean language, English language, Nature, Society, Music and Dance, Sports/Gymnastics, Health, Drawing, Technology, and Mongolian traditional script.

2. What do you like about school, and what do you not like?
:) Generally, I like mostly everything about our school, but there are several things that I like most. I like the uniform, because it’s pretty. We have two foreign (Korean) teachers. One of them teaches Korean language and the other teaches English. Both of them are young women and I like them, because they are friendly. Also, we have a cafeteria in the school, which I like to go to during the 15-minute break. Another thing I like in our school is its discipline.

:( But there are a few things that I do not like. We do not have a specific teacher for the Health subject, therefore, our class teacher is teaching Health at the moment. But often, she uses the hour for other subjects. But Health is one of my favourite subjects.
The boys fight with each other in the classroom, and I do not like that.

3. What games do you play with your friends?
We play ball games (throwing and catching small ball against a wall), volleyball, hopscotch, skipping, “run and chase”, and the “wolf and camels” game (one person plays the role of a wolf and tries to catch a baby camel, while the others play the roles of different age camels. All the camels stand in line with the father camel at the front, mother camel stands next in the line, etc, and the baby camel at the end of the line. The camels have to stay in line, holding to each other, and they can not break their connection while trying to save the baby camel from the wolf).

4. How many lessons do you have, and how long are they?
I have 5 - 6 lessons everyday, each for 40 minutes. (Most Mongolian children only have school for half the day – half the children go to school in the morning, and the other half go to school in the afternoon)

5. How long it takes for you to get to school?
As the school is quite far from my home, I go to school by bus, and it takes me about 40 minutes to get to the school.

6. How many days do you go to school and how much holiday do you have?
I go to school 5 days a week, from Monday to Friday.
We have school holidays throughout the year. We have a week’s holiday after the first term (in mid November), two weeks holiday after the second term (in early February) and another one week holiday after the third term (in mid April). Then, we have summer holiday, which lasts for 3 months from early June until the end of August.

We also rest during the national holidays. These are New Year (on 31 December and 1 January), Independence Day (26 October), Mongolian New Year (3 days in February), and International Women’s Day (8 March).


Next week I will ask the same questions to Bud, a local schoolboy.

This edition of Project Mongolia was brought to you with the help of Ankhzaya and her aunt Bulgan. Many thanks goes to them!

What part of Mongolia are you staying in?

[question from Theo, Georgia, Anna, Jake, Katie and Victoria]

I am living in the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. Here are a few interesting things about Ulaanbaatar:

*1.1 million people live in the city, which is almost half the entire population of Mongolia! Some of these people live in ordinary houses and flats, whilst others live on the outskirts of the city in ger tents.

*Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital city in the world, with temperatures often reaching -35C in January!

*Ulaanbaatar means “Red Hero”.

*The best thing about Ulaanbaatar: There are lots of things to do. The city is full of museums, shops and cafes, and even has a cinema. This is very different to most of Mongolia, where most towns only have a few shops, and if you’re very lucky a sports centre. Life outside of Ulaanbaatar is a lot more quiet and basic.

*The worst thing about Ulaanbaatar: the city’s air is quite polluted. This is partly because of the large amount of cars in the city. However, the smoke around Ulaanbaatar is also a result of some of the things people in Mongolia use to keep warm. Those lucky enough to have a house will be using electrical heating to keep warm – the big power plants nearby supply this electricity, but create a lot of smoke. The Mongolians who live in the ger tents burn a lot of coal to keep their tents warm. This also creates a lot of smoke. As Ulaanbaatar is surrounded by four mountains, this traps the smoke in, so the city’s air is quite dirty (cough, cough!).