3. Rural-Urban Divides and Digital Literacy in Mongolian Higher Education

The implementation of English as a compulsory subject in Mongolia: EFL teachers’ perceptions and experiences

“…Some major challenges that have been reported by English language teachers in Asia include their limited English language proficiency (Freeman et al, 2015;Lee, 2015;Rao, 2013) and pedagogical skills (Liyanage, 2022;Nunan, Forum for Linguistic Studies (2023) Volume 5, Issue 1 2003), tests and examinations focused on linguistic competence (Glasgow and Paller, 2016), examination-oriented teaching (Low, 2022), as well as classroom-level constraints such as limited teaching resources and materials and large-classroom size (Butler, 2011;Rao and Yu, 2019). Moreover, unequal access to quality English language education, which is attributed to many factors including socio-economic status of families, and unequal teaching and learning resources in public and private schools and in urban and rural contexts, has become a critical issue in many Asian countries (Bhatia, 2022;Choi, 2021;Hamid and Erling, 2016;Li, 2020;Marav, 2020;Sah and Li, 2018). Mostly, due to the abovementioned challenges, it has been hard to implement English language curricula that aim at communicative competence in various school settings.…”

“…For example, some parents get scholarships to study in English speaking countries such as the USA and Australia not only to develop themselves but also to give opportunities to learn English to their children. (Teacher 16,public school) As Mongolian parents, especially those from affluent families, began to intensively invest in their children's English education (Marav, 2020), some teachers expressed concerns about the possible English divide between the rich and the poor, which can potentially maintain social and class inequality in contemporary Mongolian society:…”

Mongolian Pre-Service English Teachers’ Voices about Their Teaching Practicum Experiences

“…In fact, educational inequality due to some constraints on accessing quality English language education in Mongolia is attributed to many factors, including structures or contexts at a macro-level and the socio-economic status of families (income and education levels of parents) at a micro-level. Studies [5,10] have shown that the urban-rural divide, a long-standing social boundary in Mongolian society, is enacted or reinforced through unequal access to English and digital technologies. Because of the unequal distribution of resources in urban and rural areas, urban students are more advantaged in learning English since, for instance, there is a lack of high-quality English teachers in rural schools.…”

“…It is worth noting here that many graduates who majored in English teaching prefer to teach in cities because of the living and teaching conditions. Furthermore, depending on their financial situation, Mongolian families invest in their children's English language education by sending them to private international schools, adopting English as a medium of instruction, or bilingual private schools in urban areas [10]. It is true that the graduates who attended those private schools continue their post-secondary education abroad.…”

“…Globalization also necessitates integrating English as an international language (EIL) or English as a lingua franca (ELF) pedagogies into pre-service teacher education curricula since students need to communicate internationally and interculturally [16,20,21]. In addition, there is a need to incorporate social justice education into English teacher preparation programs because educational inequality associated with access to quality English language education in many Asian countries has become a great concern due to the status of the language in those countries shaped by the forces of globalization and the increasing popularity of digital technologies [10,13,[22][23][24][25]. However, English teacher education programs have not adequately oriented toward social justice and equity compared to general teacher education [26].…”