Technical support for national minority Kazakh children

Project title: Technical support for national minority Kazakh children

Project goal: To improve quality of education for national minority Kazakh children

Project objective:

Establish a computer laboratory under the operation of a unit in charge of bilingual education at the Education and Culture Department in  Bayan-Ulgii province through a supply of 20 computers (Dell Gx240 1.7 GHz machines with 256 MB RAM and 20 GB hard drive) to be donated by Oracle

Project background information:

In Mongolia, the most significant ethnic minority with greatest religious, cultural and linguistic distinction are the Kazakhs who make up 4.4% of the population and 5% of all children aged 0-14.[1] Most of the Kazakh population live in the far western province of Bayan-Ulgii which is almost entirely Kazakh. 

Although there is no evidence of institutional discrimination, there are differences in key economic and education indicators between the Kazakhs and the majority population. Bayan-Ulgii province has a poverty rate of 46% compared to 36% nationally, with over half of the poor being classified as extremely poor.[2]

The Constitution of Mongolia guarantees the right of national minorities of other tongues to use their native language in education and communication.[3] The Education Law, revised in 2006 as a result of SCUK’s advocacy campaign, further states that the local authority will be responsible for ensuring that national minorities obtain education, and communicate in their native language in school.[4] However, Kazakh children’s right to access and to quality education is challenged. In 2005, STC UK commissioned research on education of Kazak children and revealed that Kazakh children drop out of school at three times the national rate – the highest drop out rate in the country and they attend formal preschool at less than two-thirds of the national average – the lowest preschool participation rate in the country.[5] While the Mongolian majority over age of 7 has an illiteracy rate of 4.6%, for Kazakhs it is significantly higher at 6.8%.

To promote Kazak children’s right to education, STC UK initiated and started some effort to address the problems Kazakh children face. One of our major achievements was the development and approval of the National Programme on Kazakh Children’s Education by the government as a policy framework for bilingual education development in Mongolia. The Programme will address the issues concerning lack of training materials, the gap of bilingual education in teacher preparation system, and sound policy on bilingual education. Moreover, we have successfully completed a small scale project on Teaching Mongolian as a Second Language through which we addressed the challenges Kazakh children face due to the lack of Mongolian language instructional materials and teaching methodologies of Mongolian as a second language.

STC UK is requesting Go Help’s generous support in continuing the effort to ensure the right to education of Kazakh children.

Expected outcome:

-          A new computer laboratory will be established.

-          At least 40 students and teachers will have access to the newly established laboratory on a daily basis.

-          Classes on Mongolian and Kazakh will be taught at the lab using available interactive programmes

-          Capacity of the local staff will be built through teacher trainings designed for promoting bilingual education. 

-          The newly established laboratory will serve as a good learning resource for developing instructional materials and teaching methodologies.