Inclusive and Special Needs Education in Mongolia

• In Event: Disability and inclusive education for the post-2015 agenda setting

Abstract

Since Mongolia has introduced inclusive education in 2003, the comprehensive review with stakeholders has not been implemented. According to some preliminary interviews, there is little foundation to carry out “inclusive education” at school level and not even diagnosing standard is set. In such difficult circumstances, how school teachers and parents of children with and without special needs view the realities of and expectations to education provisions. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate 1) how demand-side actors (parents/guardians and students) and supply-side actors (school principals and teachers) view the implementation of inclusive schools and special needs schools. In addition, this paper will attempt 2) to disclose an accurate understanding of the current situation of out-of-school children with special needs, including the factors that keep them out of school, their preferred type(s) of education provision, as well as whether these out-of-school children have alternative learning opportunities and how they spend their time.
The data were collected by a local consultant and JICA Research Institute in the fall of 2014 in four remote regions and Ulaanbaatar. In total, nearly 2,000 samples, including school directors, teachers, parents of children with and without special needs were surveyed, in addition to 160 parents of children with special needs who are out-of-school. Although the results are still in process, the paper intends to bring the evidence-base practical dialogue, not to support either special school or inclusive school.
This paper will enrich the panel presentation by presenting a case of Mongolia which has special and inclusive school coexist.

Author

• Yuriko Kameyama, JICA Research Institute