Mongolia is a country with a vast steppe and is one of the most sparsely populated countries in
the world with an area of 1.5 million sq. km and population of 2.5 million. The 57.0 percent of
the population lives in urban areas (half in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar) while 43.0 percent in
rural. The main spoken language is Mongolian as a mother tongue. GDP per capita was 384 USD
in 1999 and 605 USD in 2004 and Mongolia places the 114 th in the world for its human
development index.
Educational rate of the population is comparatively higher than other developing countries in the
region, and according to the census of 2000, adult literacy rate was 97.8 percent (in which 97.5
percent is male and 98.0 percent is female). However, the children who dropped out of school in
the beginning of 1990s has already became “adults illiterates” which was eliminated 1970s.
The most of the out of school children (81 percent) are in rural areas, and 71 percent of them are
boys. In rural areas, children tend to drop out of school to help their parents and pasture, but for
the urban children cause is that of migration from rural areas and poverty. Non formal education as a type of open education was approved by the Law of Education in
1991 and set up in order to provide equal opportunities to education services for the certain part
of the population who are unable to get involved in formal education, especially for herdsmen,
school-dropouts and youths.