Mongolian pupils go back to school and end long education exile

Mongolian pupils go back to school and end long education exile

ULAANBAATAR: Guiding her younger brother from their yurt on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 15-year-old Urangoo Basandorj could barely contain her excitement for yesterday’s return to school, as Mongolia’s children mark the end of grinding months of exile from education. The country of three million has taken some of the world’s toughest and most enduring measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, shutting schools and kindergartens since January 2020 and plunging children into a purgatory of remote learning with patchy access to technology.

Nearly two-thirds of the population has been fully vaccinated yet Mongolia reported 3,726 new virus cases yesterday-the highest daily increase since the pandemic hit the country, the health ministry said.

Still, masked students in blazers filed into a primary school in the capital Ulanbaatar, where classrooms were kitted out with temperature monitors, hand sanitiser and social distancing stickers. “I heard the news about reopening schools and I was super excited… I was so happy and I dreamt (of) my classmates all night,” Urangoo Basandorj told AFP.

“It was so difficult not (being) able to meet my friends… the online class wasn’t nice.” Parents across Mongolia-a landlocked country where nearly a third of people live below the poverty line-have complained of varying access to