OT: Educated people are Mongolia’s asset

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Certificates were awarded Monday to 46 high school students from 27 secondary schools in Ulaanbaatar, who have completed a unique, private sector youth development programme, the Oyu Tolgoi LLC’s website published. Academically outstanding students in Mongolia receive scholarship support from OT under its Investment agreement signed with the Government of Mongolia, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with the Ministry of education, culture and science in 2010. To date, a total of 155 students have benefitted from this scholarship programme, of whom 20 received scholarship for further studies overseas. The number of young people interested in taking part in the programme has also been growing. In view of this, a Youth Development Programme (YDP) targeted at high school students was launched anew in 2013 with the aim of building the capacity of talented Mongolian students. An 11 grade student from the #23 secondary school O.Khulan said: “I wrote an essay in order to take part in this programme. My essay was selected and I am extremely happy that I am able to express myself, display leadership qualities and work as part of a team.” Another 11th grade student from the #57 T.Amartuvshin said excitedly: “I go to a school in the ger district. I am really excited that I had the opportunity to take part in the Youth Development programme where I learned to understand myself better and express myself better in front of others.” The first stage of the YDP covered the period from December 2013 to the end of March 2014. During this time, some 290 sophomores from 50 targeted high schools including 20 best state schools, 25 schools in the outskirts of UB and 5 private high schools applied for the programme. From these applications, 50 schools were selected for the first stage of the programme.