Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. Mongolia’s allocation of more than a quarter of the country’s domestic education budget to pre-primary education is among the highest rates in the world, according to new UNICEF report released today.

According to available data, Mongolia’s pre-primary funding allocation of 26 per cent, which is the second highest globally behind Turkmenistan’s allocation of 28 per cent, has enabled an impressive expansion of pre-primary education over the past decade.

To put this commitment into the global context, in 2017 an average of 6.6 per cent of domestic education budgets worldwide were dedicated to pre-primary, with nearly 40 per cent of countries with data allocating less than 2 per cent of their education budgets to this sub-sector.

Mongolia’s commitment to early childhood education has led to impressive pre-primary coverage. Despite having the lowest population density in the world, and a large nomadic community, more than 86 per cent of Mongolia’s pre-primary age children are enrolled in early childhood education programmes, well above the global average pre-primary enrollment rate of 50 per cent and higher than the 80 per cent average across East Asia and the Pacific.

The report highlights that Mongolia’s innovative, portable ger kindergartens – which operate at satellite locations seasonally – have helped ensure that children of nomadic families could access early childhood education by designing a programme responding to location, climate and poverty.

UNICEF supports the Government of Mongolia in developing a strategy to work across the health, nutrition, child protection, governance, water and sanitation, and environment sectors to deliver integrated early childhood development services. Two model energy-efficient, integrated early childhood development centres are being built in Bayanzurkh District in partnership with the local government. In addition, UNICEF is also working to improve indoor air quality and reduce heat loss of kindergarten buildings to enable children access early childhood development services in a safe and healthy environment.

“As part of our Early Childhood Development programme, UNICEF works closely with the Government, CSOs and communities to deliver early childhood education through innovative solutions like mobile ger kindegartens and homebased learning opportunities that can be scaled up to reach every child” says Alex Heikens, Representative, UNICEF Mongolia.

A World Ready to Learn: Prioritizing quality early childhood education – UNICEF’s first ever global report on pre-primary education – reveals that children enrolled in at least one year of pre-primary education are more likely to develop the critical skills they need to succeed in school, less likely to repeat grades or drop out of school, and therefore more able to contribute to peaceful and prosperous societies and economies when they reach adulthood.

Source: UNICEF