UNICEF Mongolia - Teachers College Columbia University

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This study examined recruitment into teaching, teacher development and retenon of teachers
in Mongolia. It included a desk review of relevant policies and regulaons, an empirical study in 28
schools located in Ulaanbaatar and in five provinces, as well as individual interviews with teachers,
school administrators, policy analysts, and government officials. Special emphasis was placed on the
2007 teacher salary reform. The study examined changes over me (before and aer 2007) and also
invesgated how this parcular reform was implemented at the school level.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Four types of informaon were included in this study:
• EMIS data as well as other stascal informaon on the composion of the teaching
workforce
• Informaon on recruitment into teaching and pre-service teacher educaon, with a special
emphasis on the largest teacher training instuon in the country, that is, the Mongolian State
University of Educaon (MSUE)
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• Regulaons and decrees with regard to teacher workload, salary, licensing regulaons, inservice
training, promoon, bonus systems, etc.
• School-level data on actual teaching load, total teaching pay, actual in-service training,
oversupply/undersupply of teachers, actual bonus payments, etc.
The school-level data cover interviews with educaon managers (N=35) and teachers (N=123), as well
as a series of documents collected at the school level, such as school lesson schedules by teacher name,
qualificaons of teachers and subject(s) taught, lesson plans, teachers’ teaching hours lists, teachers’
evaluaon and bonus allowance forms, and examples of contracts. A total of 28 schools were visited:
nine city schools (in Ulaanbaatar and Erdenet), eight aimag-center schools, and eleven soum-center
schools in Kheni, Khovd, Arkhangai and Omnogobi provinces.
THE ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE TEACHER SALARY IN MONGOLIA
The average monthly base salary of school teachers in Mongolia was 324,292 MNT (270 USD) for the
2010/11 school year. The total monthly pay was 374,727 MNT (299 USD) if addional teaching hours,
supplements for funcons, supplements for rank, and bonuses for a teacher of average income are
factored in. Currently, the base sale salary accounts for 86.5 percent of total teacher pay. As the PETS
Mongolia Study demonstrated in 2005 (that is, before the salary reform of 2007), the base salary of a
teacher only amounted to 52-56 percent of the total pay; the rest of the income came mainly from the
high amount of addional teaching hours as well as the numerous salary supplements.
The large rao of the base salary as a percentage of the total pay (86.5 percent) was an explicit goal of
the 2007 salary reform. Consequently, teacher salary has become more predictable and transparent,
and teachers are less vulnerable to the arbitrary decisions of school administrators. The absolute base
TEACHERS IN MONGOLIA: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON RECRUITMENT INTO TEACHING,
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND RETENTION OF TEACHERS
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