By RORY BRIGGS

The student was gripped by the 42 inch plasma screen, headphones glued to his ears and seemingly lost in the virtual reality he was operating in. Except this was no games arcade, this was a classroom in a school on the edge of a small town called Choyr, in Govisumber Province, around 230km south of Ulaanbaatar.
This school, a ‘Mining Centre of Excellence,’ like the two other schools I visited has received a chunk of the $286million ‘Compact’ total donation given to Mongolia from the USA as aid through the Millennium Challenge Corporation funding agency that helps developing countries. The equipment for such centres is inspected and installed by the, Millennium Challenge Account TVET Project. I went with the IT and Instructional Media Specialist to witness exactly how vast sums of money are being put to use to advance education and training, within the last year, in some of the areas that have been key to Mongolia’s resource boom.
Despite only having a handful of classroom space at their disposal and having to take shifts in how many students can fit in the classrooms at a time, the equipment this school now has in place is enough to make an English private school’s ICT room look inadequate. One room is now filled with nine of these simulators, each costing between $30-40 thousand. The students are able to hone their mining skills with brand new CAT Mining Simulators that look like they’re designed for a professional XBOX or Playstation tournament. In another room, there sits another set of simulators of except one is slightly more advanced, more realistic. It produces the very same vibrations, sounds and movements as students will encounter once on site in the real mine. Its 41 inch plasma screen and its 31 inch rear view screen. This is the ‘Track Type Tractor Simulator System’ that costs over $60,000 and allows for training exercises that can measure and record a student’s sessions so that teachers can monitor progress. All donated by the US.

By B.KHASH-ERDENE

Parliament is currently discussing a project to build a special bus lane to prevent traffic. The General Manager of Ulaanbaatar, Ch.Bat, has answered some questions regarding this matter.

-There are talks of building a special bus lane. When will this project start?
-The population of Ulaanbaatar has exceeded 1.2 million, which means half the entire population of Mongolia resides and works in the capital. The traffic in the city has reached its peak and its load is at an unmanageable. Fast and efficient public transportation is in high demand. A general plan to develop Ulaanbaatar until 2030 is being formulated and the issue of public transportation has been given a separate working group to come up with new routes and methods. Many solutions such as building metros, special bus lanes and light trains have been proposed. We are looking for the most effective solution in a short amount of time. This is why the special bus lane was chosen. Many nations have implemented this effectively to reduce traffic. The construction of the lane will start within this year. It is estimated to go from 2012-2017.
-How much reduction of traffic can we expect from this?
-The central two lanes will be freed and only buses will be allowed to use it. Of course emergency vehicles such as ambulance, fire fighter trucks and police cars will be permitted use it. Since there aren’t any other vehicles on the lanes, buses will move freely without traffic. Studies show that by building bus lanes, speed of public transportations will increase 40%. The likelihood of buses reaching their stops on time will increase.

By E.DARI

Walking down the street near the State Department Store to work after having lunch, I heard someone singing loudly a famous Mongolian song called “Mother in the Dream.” I looked around saw a poor little boy around five or six years old sitting on the pavement singing the song. People passing by threw some money in the small box in front of him. The box was filled mostly with twenty, fifty and hundred tugriks. I didn’t see any thousands or five hundreds in the box.
Walking by him, I decided to stay for a while to hear him finish his song. The poor boy didn’t know the whole lyrics of the song. He knew only the general course and made up the verses. Probably he learnt it listening to the music played on the street. A wealthy looking guy passed him and threw 5000 tugriks into the box. The boy thanked the guy several times and took the 5000 tugriks from the box and put it in his pocket. I noticed that the small boy’s movement and the behavior were like a grown-up’s.
Observing the singing boy, I felt pity for him at the same time that I was proud of him. I felt that I hated his parents who made their child earn money. He was too young to earn money and work. He should play with teenagers and should feel his mom and dad’s love. A child should be spoiled by his parents instead of singing in the street to the public. Looking at the boy, I remembered the young children in Ulaanbaatar who sold bags in markets, newspapers, magazines and chewing gums.

By Anna Butler

Walking down Peace Avenue no longer makes me feel like I am on display. I have been in Mongolia long enough to have become used to being very obviously “alien”, or at least so I thought. Now the early season tourists have started to appear, I am once again reminded that here, even in Ulaanbaatar, it is very ethnically homogeneous, compared to say, London, where in a single shop you are likely to see ten or more different ethnicities mingling together. Tourists in Mongolia stand out, there is no denying it, but what are these tourists actually thinking about Mongolia?
Now that the tourist season is beginning again the first impressions that people get of Mongolia are very important. The tourism industry in Mongolia has grown in the past decade and initiatives such as “Discover Mongolia” in 2004 have helped the industry to grow and increase foreign visitors by up to 20%. Tourist attractions such as the Sky Resort and the Chingis Khan Statue, and the advertising of events such as the Ice Festival, Thousand Camel Festival and Nadaam may certainly have had an impact. In 2010, according to the World Bank, the number of tourists was 456,000, up from 446,000 in 2008.
With tourism making up to 4% of Mongolia’s total GDP, it is important to know what tourists actually expect when they come to Mongolia, and if their expectations are met. This year is the 850th anniversary of Chingis Khan and many tourists will be attracted to the country to view historical sites and learn about the history and culture of what is still considered to be a very unique and still untouched country. But what do tourists actually think? I spoke with a few early season tourists to find out.
Most people come by plane or train, a few by jeep and even fewer by bicycle. But usually their first sight of Mongolia is the sprawling city of Ulaanbaatar. The city may not be the best representation of Mongolia as a whole, but because it is the first part of Mongolia that many see, those all important first opinions are made here. One tourist was expecting to see a large city when she arrived but was still surprised at the modernity of Ulaanbaatar. She commented on the airport, on the number of cars, on the skyscrapers and the Louis Vuitton shop in Central Tower. Another person spoke of how they had expected Ulaanbaatar to be a small city, with a rural feel, horses roaming the streets and people still wearing their traditional clothing standing on street corners.