UNICEF Mongolia - Teachers College Columbia University

CHAPTER 3: RECRUITMENT INTO TEACHING
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most rigorous admission criteria and enrolls students who perform beer academically than in the
other two departments. In the academic year 2010/11, the average test score for admied students
in the Department of Foreign Languages was 710 points, as opposed to 550 points in primary teacher
educaon, and 584 in the Department of Mongolian Language and Literature.
A second finding relates to changes over me: it has become more difficult to pass the admission test
and be accepted into teacher educaon. The required admission scores were approximately the same in
the academic year 2006/07, when each of these departments required a test score between 520 and 540
points. In all three examined fields of study, the required admission score has subsequently been raised.
The huge gap in test scores between the Department of Foreign Languages and the other departments,
presented in Figure 9, is a recent phenomenon and reflects the popularity of foreign language studies at
MSUE.
Figure 9: Average Test Scores for Admied Students at MSUE in 2006/2007 and 2010/2011
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- Mongolian Language
& Literature
584
520
TEACHERS IN MONGOLIA: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON RECRUITMENT INTO TEACHING,
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND RETENTION OF TEACHERS
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- Foreign Language
- Primary Teacher
Educatior
Source: MSUE database.
0 200 400 600 800
The admission rate reflects the percentage of applicants who were accepted or admied to the
department at MSUE. In the Department for Primary Teacher Educaon, the figures for the number of
applicants and the number of admied students are idencal. In other words, there was no addional
selecon or screening of applicants taking place. All of the 348 applicants to the Department of Primary
Teacher Educaon were accepted and subsequently enrolled into the degree program.
The situaon is different for applicants in the Department of Foreign Languages and the Department
of Mongolian Language and Literature. In the Department of Foreign Languages, 93 percent were
admied (218 students admied out of 234 applicants) and in the Department of Mongolian Language
and Literature, the admission rate was over four mes lower at only 19.7 percent, as 380 students took
the admission test but only 75 of them were admied. The threshold for applying to the Mongolian
Language and Literature Department is lower because applicants feel more confident taking the test in
their nave language rather than in one of the foreign languages. This explains why there is such a large
number of applicaons (380 students) in the Mongolian Language and Literature Department. However,
it is not enrely clear why only 75 applicants were admied in the Mongolian Language and Literature
Department, as opposed to 234 applicants in the Foreign Language Department. It may be that the
540
550
530
710
2010/2011
2006/2007