Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Report of what it's like to live there - 06/13/15
Personal Experiences from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
School Name:
International School of Ulaanbaatar
Background Information:
1. Are you the parent of a child(ren) attending this school? A teacher at the school? Or both?
Parent
2. What grade or grades do/did your children attend at the school? During what year(s) did they attend the school?
5-7
3. During what years were you affiliated with this school?
2011-14
4. What was your reason for living in the city where the school is located (e.g., government, military, corporate, NGO, retired)?
Diplomatic
5. Are other schools available to expatriates in this city? Why did you choose this particular school?
Previous good experience with international schools and the desire to have an international standard education while in Mongolia
Admissions & Welcome:
1. Are the admissions and placement procedures clearly stated to prospective families, either on the school website or through other means of communication?
There appears to be a lot of partiality to local friends and supporters.
2. How would you rate the school's support and welcome/integration of new students and their families, and why?
Not systematic or organized in our experience. ISU has a policy of dealing with parents by language (Mongolian, Korean, English) which exacerbates fault lines and prevents the emergence of a proper community. For several years ISU even refused to circulate a parents' directory.
Administration & School Procedures:
1. Describe the general climate of the grade level that you teach or your child attends:
Confused
2. For the following attributes, down to the next blank box, grade your experience at the school on a scale of A (excellent) to F (unacceptable/terrible) and provide comments:<br><br>Overall fair and equitable treatment of all students and families:
F - ISU has numerous children who are offspring of the schools' own staff and teachers and who benefit disproportionately (e.g. preferred access to information, participation in school plays, events). We also found that ISU staff seem reluctant to discipline local children when needed. For example, we raised an instance of bullying/intimidation with the school staff and were told that ISU could not do anything because "the parents are political."
3. How is the overall communication between teachers and parents, and the administration and parents? How is communication facilitated?
Dependent on the personality of the teacher; we encountered a systematic reluctance to discuss issues of any substance.
4. Aside from school fees, are there required expenses such as uniforms, laptops/tablets, musical instruments, or field trips that parents are expected to cover? What are the approximate costs?
Yes, overpriced food at the cafeteria plus laptops.
5. Services for gifted students who need academic challenge and students with learning difficulties:
On paper seemingly OK, but in practice ISU generally sees this as a bother.
6. Availability and variety of after-school activities for various ages:
OK
7. Maintenance of appropriately high standards for all students:
Zero - discipline is a big problem with ISU administration and teachers alike who do not properly address issues as we personally experienced. Parents (like us) who try to raise issues are met with hostility.
8. Homework assigned (quality, quantity):
Far too much homework and generally assigned for the sake of it - we were never able to figure out how assignments fit in with the broader syllabus. If one had a good teacher (e.g. French) then it was quite different but it depended on the person. Many assignments were clearly issued on the spur of the moment with no thought whatsoever as to the value or purpose.
9. Administration-parent communication:
Egregiously bad. In our experience, the administration does not welcome feedback and is very defensive. The school also appears to focus on abstract concepts like curriculum provision or facility administration rather than on the students. Some of the higher administrators were invisible and inaccessible to us. On one instance during the semester when we asked to see the Director on an important matter, we were told he had taken a week's leave to compensate for all the time working with contractors in the summer on new facilities! I've never seen a school before where staff take leave during the semester. Administrators are frequently abroad on training courses, and we found access was really a big problem.
Regardless of the level, staff were highly defensive when it came to discussing any feedback they saw negative. When a difficult situation arose between a 7-year-old girl and her teacher, the whole class sent a delegation to complain, the response again was a brick wall with no admission of wrongdoing or assurances that deficiencies would be corrected.
10. Teacher-student communication:
Depends largely on the teacher, but in general the mood in ISU is one where one is expected not to ask questions or suggest anything outside of the status quo. There is a general lack of trust, and teachers have a sense of impunity - the Grade 7 maths teacher once informed his class that the only reason he went into teaching was for the long holidays! While ISU has some good teachers, many are way out of their depth, inexperienced and seemingly using the ISU job more as a reason for travel than to fulfill a mission as an educator. Seeing teachers leave the school before students at the close of semester was simply depressing.
11. Does your child receive any special-needs assistance or instruction at this school? If yes, what types? Who provides services and where:
12. Do you believe the special-needs assistance is appropriate and fills your needs? Explain:
13. Does the gifted and talented program meet the needs of students? Please explain:
14. Does the school offer a wide variety of elective or non-core classes such as art, music, and drama?
On paper it's an OK offering.
15. Please describe any classes or programs that you believe are missing:
Quantity-wise, ISU is fine and it looks impressive on the website but what is missing is the quality. I've never seen a school run with less 'heart' and with such disinterest by staff in the students.
16. Are there academic requirements such as trips or other activities that cost money in addition to school fees?
Yes, field trips in particular.
17. What activities do you feel are missing?
Being in Mongolia, the school should do far far more to embrace the fact that students are living in East Asia and bring in cultural activities specific to the location, as well as sporting activities (e.g. horse riding).
18. Have your children participated in the activities offered? If no, please indicate why:
Yes, some field trips. It was with a sense of unease though. On one trip we were not calmed when we heard that some students brought knives with them, for example.
19. Does the school provide appropriate assistance to new students?
No
20. Please describe any problem areas or challenges in social interaction at the school:
The culture of the school is generally hostile, especially to children who are not in the 'mainstream.'
Academics & Resources:
1. What personal or academic counseling resources are available at this school? Is there a dedicated college counselor at the school? Is he/she familiar with universities worldwide?
Extremely poor with a very poor choice of counsellor, demonstrating none of the attributes one would normally require, including confidentiality.
2. Does the school have a library? How large is it? How updated are the books? Can students borrow books to read at home?
There is a small library staffed by a full-time international staff person but like so much in ISU, the approach is more done with checklists in mind rather than with great enthusiasm. The selection of titles is uninspiring, with no provision made for the school's location, or students' interests. The library is and feels unloved, clinical, and tired.
3. How are information technology resources at the school. Are they up-to-date? Is there a computer lab?
OK
4. Describe the physical education resources at the school. Is there a gym? A swimming pool? Are there playing fields or tennis courts available?
Good - we were lucky to have a motivated and professional PE teacher.
5. What is the approximate teacher-to-student ratio in the grades that your child attended?
Numbers are very favourable.
6. Are Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses available in upper grades? If this is an IB school, is the full diploma required of all students?
IB is available, but the school and teachers are unprepared and the level of real interest and commitment is low. We frequently asked for details of the curriculum and syllabi, including reading lists, targets and so forth, but the school never responded.
7. What fine arts electives are available (music, drama, visual arts)?
On paper OK but in reality the quality is low. Also, when trying to sign up for piano classes, we were told for 3 years that it was always "full" so we arranged elsewhere. In a country with outstanding musical tradition, the musical standard at ISU was very low with little enthusiasm or spirit. Choices of songs were often very inappropriate (profanity, sexuality) for very young children. As with other aspects at ISU, transparency was a problem and we never received a satisfactory answer when we requested details of the music and drama programme.
8. What services are available for gifted/advanced students at the school? Please describe your experience with these services, if applicable.
9. What extra-curricular activities (including sports) are available at this school? Have your children participated in these activities? What activities do you feel are missing at the school?
Yes.
Social & Emotional Well-Being:
1. Do expatriate students socialize with local students at the school? Are both groups successfully integrated into the school culture?
Yes - but limited.
2. Are there are any problems with exclusionary behavior, cliques, or bullying at this school? Please describe any problems your children may have experienced in this area.
Yes - there is a clear split in ISU between Mongolian students, Korean students and other students, with pronounced disciplinary problems. ISU's general stance is appalling, basically to pretend that problems don't exist.
Overall Impressions:
1. What is the greatest strength of this school?
2. Greatest challenge?
3. Would you choose this school again? Why?
On no account - this choice really marred our stay in Mongolia. The only reason that ISU has survived so long is its monopoly position in this remote country but with new entrants they will need to change to survive. New arrivals to Mongolia would do well to look at the range of new schools now available, including the American and British Schools, or the Elite School, all of which are friendlier and understand better that schools are about children.
