To answer these questions, boys from Jargalant soum, Khovd aimag held a forum in November, 2020. There are still many fond reflections being shared, honest chats being had, and useful recommendations from the forum that are being applied within the soum community and the school. The soum community and students want to continue the initiative, making it a regular event not only for the school but also for their soum and aimag. The idea came from working together with the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Project Phase-II. When Secondary School No. 2 of Khovd aimag conducted self-assessment among its teachers, students, and parents, they identified needs for training curricula for global citizenship and improving boys’ participation and leadership in school and social life. This is when their initiative to organize Boys’ Forum won a 100,000 MNT grant from ESD project.
B. Nemekhbuyan, Education specialist from Khovd aimag: “One does not always need higher education to achieve success but, rather, to make their passion and interest a business and their lifelong profession. The discussions during the forum clearly showed there are many issues that challenge boys.
E. Daniel, grade 11 student from Khovd Secondary School No. 2: “Our boys also need to be leaders. There are issues at the school, such as senior students looking down at juniors, and juniors being scared of senior students. After the forum, junior students started to greet and talk to us. We also want to set a positive example for them.”
Ts. Surenkhorloo, school social worker: “By partnering with the ESD II project, students’ ecological education improved. Teacher, parent, and student relations are improving too. With project support and training, teachers, parents, and students collaboratively identified urgent issues and ways to solve them. Based on our findings, we wrote a proposal for a small grant project. Boys’ Forum was one of the successful small grant projects that we initiated and implemented.”
All the boys from the school were actively engaged in participating in the forum. When conducting risk analysis using the methodology and advisory guidelines provided by the project, a lack of participation was identified as one of the possible risks. Therefore, we linked classroom incentive systems to participate in the forum. It allowed full attendance for everyone interested.
Secondary School No. 2 of Jargalant soum, Khovd aimag also conducted a school water consumption assessment, linking it to their everyday consumption habits. The results of the assessment showed that 6% of the school’s total water loss was due to broken toilets. In addition, they found that most families of the students store their drinking water in plastic containers and that they drink not enough water. These were some of the findings that needed solutions.
Ts.Surenkhorloo, one of the school’s social workers, stated, “Now everyone at the school is worried when they spot the unnecessary loss of water anywhere around the facility, and we try to solve that problem using our resources and team efforts. Most households have replaced their water containers with appropriate ones. Also, the numbers of student and teacher who carry and use their own water bottles have increased.”
For more information of the project, please visit www.esdmongolia.com
