Enabling Environment for Social Accountability in ... - SASANet

wide mandate to manage and monitor the operations of schools. In 2000, MoECS adopted Regulation 92
to clarify the role of school boards, specifying their authority to: 1) hire and dismiss school principals; 2)
approve and amend school budgets and investment schedules; 3) approve salary funds and number of
employees; 4) approve the development of policy, mission, curriculum, and business plans; and 5)
develop their own internal procedures.
Initially, the boards were to be composed of 17 members, with only teachers, students, parents, and
representatives of local organizations to serve on a board. In 1998, however, an amendment extended
representation to include alumni and representatives of the aimag governors as “the founders” of public
schools. 81 Under this new amendment, the representatives of the founders were not elected to the board
like other members, but were usually the soum governors or their designees. Moreover, the amendment
stipulated that the founders were to hold a majority of 51-60 percent of the seats on the board.
In May 2002, a new law on education was adopted in which the role of the now highly politicized boards
was essentially reduced to an advisory one (Finding EDU 1). These changes were adopted in the broader
context of recentralization, which stripped the boards of their fiscal responsibility. The boards lost their
power to approve school budgets and were left only with the right to comment on proposals submitted by
school principals to representatives of the Ministry of Education.
In addition to their lost fiscal authority, school boards lost their power to hire or dismiss principals; they
could merely propose candidates for the positions. The governor of Uyanga soum acknowledged that
under the new system, boards could technically “block” a candidate nominated by a governor, but
ultimately the governor could override their veto and hire or dismiss a principal over the board’s
objections. Consistent with the new more limited advisory role of school boards, in 2002 Regulation 230
changed their name from school boards to school councils.
The 2002 Law on Education also changed the process for appointing members to the councils. The
changes were deemed necessary to depoliticize the boards and to enhance continuity. In addition to
reducing the council’s number to between 9 and 11, the new law stipulates that all members are to be
elected at a general meeting (an annual meeting of stakeholders), although representatives of the other
organizations are nominated by the founders and merely approved at the general meeting. These
representatives retain a majority on the councils even though there is no legal stipulation for this.
THE REDUCED BUT CONTINUING ROLES OF
SCHOOL COUNCILS IN SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Public officials and community members both perceived the reduced authority of the school councils as
undermining their role. The two parent representatives on the Uyanga School Council, for example, noted
that unlike the former school boards, the councils have no real authority to monitor the principal or the
school budget. At the national level, a member of the Standing Committee on Education of the State
Great Khural also noted that school councils have no real authority, as they can merely suggest how to
support school activities, improve the quality of services, and maintain parent involvement. Various
stakeholders in both Ulaanbaatar and Uyanga echoed these critical assessments of the new school
councils.
81 Under Mongolian Education Law, the aimag or city governors have the authority to create, transform, or disband a local
school. As such they are characterized as the “founders” of public schools.
85