From Soviet Influence to Market Economy: Mongolia’s Higher Education Journey

Alex Usher: Hi, I'm Alex Usher, and this is the World of Higher Education Podcast.
It's been a while since we did an episode looking at the higher education system of a far-flung corner of the world. Recently I was perusing the pages of International Higher Education, a wonderful quarterly publication out of Boston College, and I saw a great little article about the challenges facing Mongolian higher education, and I knew this was something we had to cover on the podcast.
Unless you spend a lot of time reading about the Chinggis Khan Empire, or in my case, watching the upper echelons of professional Sumo, my guess is you probably don't think about Mongolia that often.
As a state it's only a little over a century old, a child of the disintegration of the Chinese empire, which found protection under the Soviet banner. Its fortunes, both as a country and as a higher education system, therefore, look a lot like those from the further flung stands of Central Asia — that is seriously under-resourced and heavily influenced by a Russian model, which splits teaching and research into two very different buckets.
Today my guest is Dendev Badarch, a professor at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology in Ulan Bator, and one of the co-authors of that IHE article. He has an interesting take on the current situation in Mongolia and the likely keys to the system's future success as the country moves towards upper-middle-income status and deals with the challenge of becoming a service economy.
But enough for me. Let's turn it over to Dendev.
So, Badarch, let's start with a brief history of Mongolian higher education. Cause you're the oldest university in the country. The National University of Mongolia is only about 80 years old, I think 1942. And my guess is that the start, the system would have been heavily dependent on, uh, the Soviet system. That would have been the model.
How did the system develop during the period of socialism up to the end of the 1980s? Apart from training government cadres, what industries was it built to support and how quickly did it come to teach in Mongolian?
Badarch Dendev: First of all, thank you very much for inviting me for this podcast. Yes, you are correct that the Mongolian higher education system was heavily influenced by Soviet system. The first university, National University of Mongolia was established in 1942, but its curriculum structure, administration, closely followed by the Soviet model. But, uh, in order to align the national planned economy needs, the Mongolia, uh, has established on the basis of several faculties, small, uh, schools, like medical, agriculture, and teacher training, and polytechnic. This process was, uh, between 1950 and 1960s. In order to, uh, supply the, with the relevant skills, uh, specialist, those institutes made, uh, quite a significant contribution to the Mongolian economy. Uh, yes, the old university, uh, language of instruction was Russian at the beginning. But gradually this, uh, moved to Mongolian language because we have the new supply of Mongolian, uh, specialists with the higher education degrees, et cetera. In the 1960s, uh, many courses, especially in, uh, uh, social and human sciences, were taught in the Mongolian language.
Alex Usher: So by the 1970s, then you've got a system that's, that's producing professionals and it's producing them in the Mongolian language. And then suddenly at the end of the 1980s, uh, there's a shift to a market economy that must have had a very profound impact on higher education. What were the biggest changes that occurred, um, in that first decade or so of, of a market economy?
Badarch Dendev: Democratic Revolution of 1989 1990s marked the historic transition in the history of our country. We, uh, we made the transition from socialist one party system to multi party democracy, free market economy. Uh, this shift led to significant, uh, change in higher education. Uh, in response to the, uh, pressure from the democratic, uh, uh, system, the government made, in my opinion, three key, uh, steps, the moves. The first one is the, they made changes, uh, significant changes, reclassifying the old public institute as a university. They're giving them more authority because, uh, Mongolia faced economic difficulties. As you know, during the Soviet time, socialist period, Mongolian higher education was fully funded by the government, by the state. Tuition, student stipend, faculty salaries, etc. But, uh, when we had this, uh, uh, democratic change, we had a very difficult situation. Second, uh, um, under socia socialism, the old higher education institutions were public. The government, uh, allowed to establish the private universities and colleges. That was increased, uh, quite significantly the access to, uh, to the higher education. And third initiative was the uh, adoption of the very first law on higher education. So these three, important steps, uh, taken by government made, uh, shaped today's Mongolia higher education.
Alex Usher: And what's the, the division now between public and private higher education? So, you know, in countries, China, Russia, you know, maybe three quarters of the students are still in public universities, but there's still an important private or non state sector that educates about a quarter of the students. Is that true in Mongolia as well? How big is the private sector there?
Badarch Dendev: You see the, when the government made decision to, uh, establish the priority schools, there was the boom, boom of the private, uh, small colleges, which has no infrastructure, no teaching, enough, uh, sufficient, uh, teaching staff, et cetera. And so one time it reached almost 200 private colleges. But, uh, uh, as of, uh, last year, 2022, 2023, academic year, we have, uh, 69 higher education institutions, from which, uh, 19 public, so 50 private.
Alex Usher: Okay.
Badarch Dendev: However, uh, in terms of the student numbers, 60 percent of the students are in public universities because, because of reputation, because of the infrastructure, et cetera. So the Mongolia has, uh, about 145 thousand students.
Alex Usher: So, my understanding is that both public and private institutions, rely quite a bit on tuition fees that, and that the tuition fees are quite high. Is that good for financial sustainability or does it come with risks for institutions?
Badarch Dendev: Tuition fees are not high,
Alex Usher: Okay,
Badarch Dendev: Yeah, but the universities and higher education institutions depend on tuition. Almost 90 percent of income comes from tuition.
Alex Usher: Even in the public sector.
Badarch Dendev: Of course. There is no no public, uh, funding.
Alex Usher: Okay.
Badarch Dendev: Except some, uh, the government subsidized, subsidies for students.
Alex Usher: And so it's not whether it's, I guess you can't, in that situation, you can't really say, you know, that, that a high dependence on tuition fee is bad. It's the only way to get things done if there's no public subsidy, right?
Badarch Dendev: Yes. Yes.
Alex Usher: Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, we're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
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Alex Usher: And we're back, Badarch, uh, another critical function of universities is research. How does Mongolia compare internationally in terms of scientific research? What are the, uh, what are the successes and, and what are the biggest barriers to developing a stronger research culture?
Badarch Dendev: You know, the Mongolian universities, uh, from the beginning was the training institutions, not the research. But I, I would like to say that, uh, last 10 years, there was a quite significant, uh, investment in higher education, especially public universities. The first, uh, the university professors starting to publish internationally. So the five most, uh, the biggest, uh, public universities produce 65% of all internationally published, uh, research papers. But, you know, the mon in Mongolia, the, uh, higher education and the research was separated from the beginning, follow, following the Russian models.
Alex Usher: Uh, right. So you would have an academy of sciences—
Badarch Dendev: Yeah, research done by the Academy of Sciences.
Alex Usher: Okay.
Badarch Dendev: And second, uh, the universities received, uh, quite a significant investment in research infrastructure. For example, National University of Mongolia has, uh, more than 40 research laboratories in biology, environmental sciences, and, uh, uh, even nuclear physics. Uh, Mongolian University of Science and Technology has the supercomputer laboratories, very modern mechanical engineering laboratories. So we have this, uh, uh, infrastructure now. Second, uh, uh, we have a lot of new graduates from, uh, foreign universities returning to Mongolia and working in the universities. So they are now producing their research papers. But, uh, in terms of the negative side, there is not funding for research for universities because research funding mostly goes to the Academy of Sciences. There is very weak collaboration with industry. There is no funding from industry, almost. There is no, endowment fund, et cetera, so, support system for university research. And then the another problem is the graduate program. The Mongolian graduate programs are not strong. The first, uh, uh, one biggest issue is that almost 99 percent of graduate students are part time students. There is no full time student.
Alex Usher: Got it.
Badarch Dendev: This, this means the research is not there.
Alex Usher: Right.
So this is the very critical problem.
A couple of years ago, there were a set of laws passed aimed to increase university autonomy. Uh, so it was about governance, leadership selection those kinds of things. Do any universities now have real independence or does political influence remain a challenge? And, and, and what, you know, what did the laws do to, to give effect to political independence?
Badarch Dendev: During the last three years, uh, there was the very wide discussions about the concept and the details of the new laws. So in July 2023, the parliament adopted set of education laws. The first time those laws, uh, covered all the stages of education as a one system. So this is the interconnection between different levels of education. That's a very good sign. Second, in this law, first time, uh, indicated academic freedom as the, as the key principle of higher education. That is also a good thing. Third, uh, third issue is concerning the governments, government bodies. So, according to the law, if it will be implemented correctly, the universities will have the independent government board. Uh, third one is the, uh, diversification of the, uh, funding for universities. And, uh, the research of the universities should be strengthened. And, uh, the government subsidy, uh, the public universities in terms of the maintenance costs. Those are the, I think, positive, items of this new law. Unfortunately, in the reality, uh, implementation of those important issues not there. Still, the political interference for the government bodies and selection of the rectors and appointment of key leadership of universities are there.
Alex Usher: So we've been talking a lot about challenges in Mongolian higher education. What do you think the opportunities are? Where do you see, um, you know, the, the areas for greatest improvement in the next few years?
Badarch Dendev: Yeah, there are, uh, opportunities, uh, of course. Uh, first, uh, the university is now expanding the cooperation with international communities. So they are learning a lot. And also, as I already mentioned, that we have new wave of young specialists and graduates from world leading universities. So we need to, uh, hire them.
And if we will hire the new young people to give them opportunity to, to do research and to teach and, uh, reform higher education institutions, we will have the, uh, some positive changes soon. Uh, secondly, there is the opportunity for digital technologies. If we will, uh, use the digital technologies smartly and correctly, like, uh, uh, AI or the other technologies, then, uh, the Mongolian online, online teaching MOOCs, et cetera, and then the Mongolian universities can, can, uh, step forward. So this is the, the opportunities. But in order to use those opportunities, we need to implement law correctly.
Alex Usher: And so, if we think even further ahead out to maybe 2050, um, I mean, what do you think the system will look like? Will there be catch up between Mongolia and, say, China or Korea and Japan? Like, will, will, you know, will the system have developed to the point where it can, it can group itself with those peers?
Badarch Dendev: Uh, you may know that, uh, the government, uh, adopted the regional 2050. The government's long term strategic, uh, development plan. According to this, uh, plan, 2050, the Mongolia should have the, one of the, uh, the leading university in the region. I see two scenario for the development of higher education in Mongolia up to 2050. First one is optimistic and second one is pessimistic. Uh, start with the, uh, optimistic. If we will reduce the government and political interference to the, uh, university governance, give them full authority. And second, the government should increase the support to the universities, establish a strong link with the industry, establish kind of triple helix models, etc. And also, we tie up with international leading universities in order to improve their graduate programs. In that case, then Mongolia should have the quite strong higher education institutions because otherwise you see today most skilled talented students from the secondary school, they are not looking for local, uh, universities. They are looking for the other countries, different foreign universities.
The pessimistic, uh, scenario is that if we will continue in this, uh, manner, the university is really still there, but still no freedom, no independence, and those issues which we are facing today will continue. So that, that is the very pity, but I hope that there will be some changes in government policy, and they will implement the laws and best practices from abroad in higher education system in Mongolia.
Alex Usher: Badarch Dendev, thank you so much for joining us today.
Badarch Dendev: Thank you.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers for joining today. If you have any questions or comments about today's podcast, please don't hesitate to contact us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. If you're worried about missing an episode of the World of Higher Education, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel? Go there today, don't delay, never miss an episode. Join us next week when our guest will be Steven Mintz. He's a professor of history at the University of Texas, Austin, and we'll be talking about his new book, The Learning Centered University. Bye for now.