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This book addresses students, practitioners and scholars in educational policy studies. The authors use Mongolia as a case to illustrate how global influences shape domestic developments in education, and how imported education reforms are locally modified, re-contextualized, or 'Mongolized'.

Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia is the first full-length treatment of literacy in Mongolian. Challenging readers’ assumptions about Central Asia and Mongolia, this book focuses on Mongolians’ experiences with reading and writing throughout the past 100 years. Literacy, as a powerful historical and social variable, shows readers how reading and writing have shaped the lives of Mongolians and, at the same time, how reading and writing have been transformed by historical, political, economic, and other social forces.Mongolian literacy serves as an especially rich area of inquiry because of the dramatic political, economic, and social changes that occurred in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For the seventy years during which Mongolia was a part of the communist Soviet world, literacy played an important role in how Mongolians identified themselves, conceived of the past, and created a new social order. Literacy was also a part of the story of authoritarianism and state violence. It was used to express the authority of the communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, control the pastoral population, and suppress non-socialist beliefs and practices. Mongolians’ reading and writing opportunities and resources were tightly controlled, and the language policy of replacing the traditional Mongolian script with the Cyrillic alphabet immediately followed the violent repression of Buddhist leaders, government officials, and intellectuals.Beginning with the 1990 Democratic Revolution, Mongolians have been thrust into free-market capitalism, privatization, globalization, and neoliberalism. In post-socialist Mongolia, literacy no longer serves as the center for Mongolian identity. Government subsidies to pastoral literacy resources have been slashed, and administrators now find themselves competing with other “developing countries” for educational funding. Due to the pressures caused by globalization, Mongolians have begun to talk about literacy and language in terms of crisis and anxiety. As global flows of English compete with new symbols from the distant past, Mongolians worry about the perceived lowering standards of Mongolian linguistic usage amid rapid economic changes. These worries also reveal themselves in official language policies and manifest themselves in the multiple languages and scripts that appear in the capital of Ulaanbaatar and other urban areas.

We sought to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) in the urban population of Mongolia and suggest a preferred definition. This cross-sectional study comprised 2076 representative samples, which were randomly selected to provide blood samples. MS was defined by the National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adults Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), and the Joint Interim Statement (JIS). The Cohen’s kappa coefficient (κ) was analyzed to determine the agreement between the individual MS components using the three definitions. The prevalence of MS in the 2076 samples was 19.4% by NCEP ATP III, 23.6% by IDF, and 25.4% by JIS criteria. For men, moderate agreement was found between the NCEP ATP III and waist circumference (WC) (κ = 0.42), and between the JIS and fasting blood glucose (FBG) (κ = 0.44) and triglycerides (TG) (κ = 0.46). For women, moderate agreement was found between the NCEP ATP III and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (κ = 0.43), and between the JIS and HDL-C (κ = 0.43). MS is highly prevalent in the Mongolian urban population. The JIS definition is recommended as the provisional definition.

To understand the extent to which national salt reduction strategies in Malaysia and Mongolia were implemented and achieving their intended outcomes. Multiple methods process evaluations conducted at the mid-point of strategy implementation, guided by theoretical frameworks. Malaysia (2018-2019) and Mongolia (2020-2021). Desk-based reviews of related documents, interviews with key stakeholders ( 12 Malaysia, 10 Mongolia), focus group discussions with health professionals in Malaysia ( 43) and health provider surveys in Mongolia ( 12). Both countries generated high-quality local evidence about salt intake and levels in foods and culturally specific education resources. In Malaysia, education and reformulation activities were delivered with moderate dose (quantity) but reach among the population was low. Within 5 years, Mongolia implemented education among schools, health professionals and food producers on salt reduction with high reach, but with moderate dose (quantity) and reach among the general population. Both countries faced challenges in implementing legislative interventions (mandatory salt labelling and salt limits in packaged foods) and both could improve the scaling up of their reformulation and education activities. In the first half of Malaysia's and Mongolia's strategies, both countries generated necessary evidence and education materials, mobilised health professionals to deliver salt reduction education and achieved small-scale reformulation in foods. Both subsequently should focus on implementing regulatory policies and achieving population-wide reach and impact. Process evaluations of existing salt reduction strategies can help strengthen intervention delivery, aiding achievement of WHO's 30 % reduction in salt intake by 2025 target.

Despite evidence from multiple randomized evaluations of microcredit, questions about external validity have impeded consensus on the results. I jointly estimate the average effect and the heterogeneity in effects across seven studies using Bayesian hierarchical models. I find the impact on household business and consumption variables is unlikely to be transformative and may be negligible. I find reasonable external validity: true heterogeneity in effects is moderate, and approximately 60 percent of observed heterogeneity is sampling variation. Households with previous business experience have larger but more heterogeneous effects. Economic features of microcredit interventions predict variation in effects better than studies’ evaluation protocols.

Mongolian government has set improvement of clinical proficiency of nursing students as one of its priorities. Nursing professionals have the sentinel role in providing healthcare services in rural areas. Outcome-based education (OBE) offers a promising pedagogical approach to actively mentally engage students to strengthen their clinical proficiencies. We implemented a pilot project with the objective of comparing students' clinical performance under OBE with our traditional didactic techniques. The researchers implemented a non-equivalent two-armed quasi-experimental post-test-only' design approach study. The intervention arm (n = 34) received OBE pediatric training, while the control arm (n = 32) received the traditional pedagogical pediatric nursing training. Each arm of the study completed 16 hours of theory, 32 hours of clinical skills practice and 32 hours of seminars in pediatric nursing care. Data were collected using a five-section instrument, Demographic, Competency Inventory, Nursing Students' Satisfaction, Course Experience, and Objective Structured Clinical Examination. Performance and knowledge proficiencies were evaluated by applying the two-sided independent T-test. The distributions of categorical variables were assessed by Fisher's exact test or chi-squared test of significance. The intervention arm had higher mean score value in the competency inventory ([Formula: see text] = 238.70, SD = ± 23.07) compared to the control arm ([Formula: see text] = 222.11, SD = ± 39.94) (P = 0.04); similarly, the mean value for nursing students' satisfaction was higher for the intervention arm ([Formula: see text] = 117.87, SD = ± 15.94) compared to the control group ([Formula: see text] = 109.76, SD = ± 16.94) (P = 0.049). Additionally, the difference in the mean value for course experience questionnaire between the intervention arm ([Formula: see text] = 125.33, SD = ± 19.30) and the control arm ([Formula: see text] = 110.41, SD = ± 11.28) was statistically significant (P = 0.0001). Finally, the intervention arm had a higher mean value ([Formula: see text] = 85.40, SD = ± 6.11) for objective structural clinical examination compared to the control arm ([Formula: see text] = 81.56, SD = ± 7.01) (P = 0.023). OBE pedagogical approach offers promising benefits to improving nursing students' clinical competencies; additionally, the OBE approach seems to increase students' satisfactions with their clinical curriculum.

•In 2015–2016, Mongolia experienced a large measles outbreak.•A serosurvey assessed measles and rubella IgG seropositivity.•94% were measles IgG seropositive; 95% were rubella IgG seropositive.•Immunity gaps existed in some subpopulations. In 2015–2016, Mongolia experienced an unexpected large measles outbreak affecting mostly young children and adults. After two nationwide vaccination campaigns, measles transmission declined. To determine if there were any remaining immunity gaps to measles or rubella in the population, a nationally representative serosurvey for measles and rubella antibodies was conducted after the outbreak was over. A nationwide, cross-sectional, stratified, three-stage cluster serosurvey was conducted in November-December 2016. A priori, four regional strata (Ulaanbaatar, Western, Central, and Gobi-Eastern) and five age strata (6 months-23 months, 2–7 years, 8–17 years, 18–30 years, and 31–35 years) were created. Households were visited, members interviewed, and blood specimens were collected from age-appropriate members. Blood specimens were tested for measles immunoglobulin G (IgG) and rubella IgG (Enzygnost® Anti-measles Virus/IgG and Anti-rubella Virus/IgG, Siemens, Healthcare Diagnostics Products, GmbH Marburg, Germany). Factors associated with seropositivity were evaluated. Among 4598 persons aged 6 months to 35 years participating in the serosurvey, 94% were measles IgG positive and 95% were rubella IgG positive. Measles IgG seropositivity was associated with increasing age and higher education. Rubella IgG seropositivity was associated with increasing age, higher education, smaller household size, receipt of MMR in routine immunization, residence outside the Western Region, non-Muslim religious affiliation, and non-Kazakh ethnicity. Muslim Kazakhs living in Western Region had the lowest rubella seroprevalence of all survey participants. Nationally, high immunity to both measles and rubella has been achieved among persons 1–35 years of age, which should be sufficient to eliminate both measles and rubella if future birth cohorts have ≥ 95% two dose vaccination coverage. Catch-up vaccination is needed to close immunity gaps found among some subpopulations, particularly Muslim Kazakhs living in Western Region.

The He isotopic composition of fluid inclusions in magnetite of alkaline and subalkaline intrusion of the Hovsgol region, Northwestern Mongolia, is studied. The measured 4 He content varies from 6.6 × 10 –7 to 114 × 10 –7 cm 3 /g. The 3 He/ 4 He isotope ratio of most samples is 0.23–0.59 Ra indicating the presence of He from different sources in magmatic fluid. The maximum of mantle He (2.51 Ra ) is observed in magnetite of subalkali gabbro. The mantle He component was ~40–60% during the generation of parental magma with possible involvement of subcontinental lithospheric mantle material or a plume-like reservoir less enriched in 3 He. The mantle He component did not exceed 10–15% during the evolution of the foidoitic and alkali-syenitic melts because of mixing with crustal radiogenic He. We suggest the interaction of intrusions with fragments of the Precambrian accretionary–collision complexes of the Tuva–Mongolian Terrane. This mixing of He isotopes in melts and fluids can serve as indirect evidence of the development of mantle magmatism at the active continental margin.

Causal evidence on microcredit impacts informs theory, practice, and debates about its effectiveness as a development tool. The six randomized evaluations in this volume use a variety of sampling, data collection, experimental design, and econometric strategies to identify causal effects of expanded access to microcredit on borrowers and/or communities. These methods are deployed across an impressive range of locations—six countries on four continents, urban and rural areas—borrower characteristics, loan characteristics, and lender characteristics. Summarizing and interpreting results across studies, we note a consistent pattern of modestly positive, but not transformative, effects. We also discuss directions for future research.

Health management and health education are two important tasks in the national basic public health service project with a wide audience, large service volume, and high accessibility. From 2009 to 2018, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China launched the basic public health service (BPHS) project comprehensively. The implementation of health management and health education was supported and instructed actively. This study aimed to document population-level trends in health management and health education on chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes in Inner Mongolia, China. We collected monthly and annual reports on the implementation progress of the BPHS project in Inner Mongolia, China. A two-stage random sampling method was used to investigate health management and health education for hypertension and diabetes patients. The rate of standard health management for both hypertension and diabetes has significantly increased. The blood pressure control rate and glycemic control rate have also improved. This work provides the most comprehensive evidence to date regarding the upward trends in health management and health education on chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes in Inner Mongolia, China.