Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

This arguably reflects the relatively low priority accorded to promoting a sense
of shared regional identity which, as well as being desirable in itself, is critical
for underpinning inter-state cooperation on cross-border issues such as drugtrafficking,
natural resource development and water security.
Civic and Citizenship Education
The varying nature of political regimes across the region, and related variations
in the strength and scope of civil society, have influenced integration of civic and
citizenship education into education policy and curricula. Civic and citizenship
education in the region mainly focuses on human rights education and values
of democratic participation and active citizenship. In Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia,
local civil society has been more vibrant and influential in advocating human
Civic and citizenship
education in the
region mainly
focuses on human
rights education and
values of democratic
participation and
active citizenship
rights and social justice, and lobbying against the
government on issues such as corruption. The coding
results show that Mongolian documents extensively
cover concepts associated with the category ‘human
rights’, including civil liberties, social justice and to
a lesser extent, democracy (see Appendix II-4). This
in part reflects extended efforts by local civil society
groups and foreign donor organisations (Altangerel,
2009; Damdin and Vickers, 2015). However, policy
and curricular documents from Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan feature considerable coverage of human
rights and civil liberties, albeit with less of an emphasis on social justice and
democracy. Intriguingly, Uzbekistan is the only country out of all 22 surveyed for
this report which gives a very high or high weightage to ‘human rights’ across
all five related sub-categories (Appendix II-4). This in part reflects numerous
references to the notion of education itself as a universal human right, which
was a characteristic of Soviet official discourse. But the impression given by the
coding results of Uzbekistan’s promotion of human rights through schooling
constitutes one more reason for caution in relying on quantitative data alone to
monitor progress towards achieving SDG 4.7.
It is also important to note that the local meaning of civic and citizenship
education has changed over time. For example, in Mongolia, the term ‘Civic/
Citizenship Education’ introduced by civil society organisations and donors was
used interchangeably with ‘Democracy Education’ in the 1990s. However, when
‘Citizenship Education’ began to be discussed as an integral component of the
primary and secondary curriculum in the 2000s, it was considered by policy
makers and leading educators as ‘Citizen’s Education’ or ‘Civilization Studies’.
The terms ‘citizenship’ and ‘civilization’ can be translated by the same word
irgenshil in Mongolian, and this concept is associated with the widespread
perception amongst educators of Civics as a vehicle for teaching about morality,
Mongolian traditional customs and national values. For example, the primary
objective of the current Grade 8 Civic Education curriculum is to raise citizens
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Chapter 6: Central Asia and Mongolia