STANDING COMMITTEE HEAD MEETS ADB DELEGATION

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Head of the parliamentary Standing committee on social policy, education, culture and science D.Battsogt Thursday received a delegation led by Mr Robert Schoellhammer, country director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for Mongolia. The delegation included Asako Maruyama, an educational expert of the ADB on urban development and social sector; L.Itgel, a senior expert at the ADB Permanent Representative Office; and Ch.Narantsatsral, a project coordinator. Beginning the meeting, Mr Schoellhammer reported that the ADB intends to collect information for implementing the “Skills for Employment” project, and then introduced to the Standing committee head this project. “The project aims to support ongoing reforms to establish a market-responsive, and competency-based technical and vocational education and training (TVET) system for the agriculture, construction and road-transportation sectors in Mongolia. It has been proposed to give a financing of USD 25 million for the project from the ADB,” Mr Schoellhammer said. As the project’s result, the system of vocational training will be formed in harmony with needs of labour market at these three fields, he added. The project actions will focus on developing industry-driven TVET system in priority sectors; upgrading selected TVET providers in the priority sectors to implement Competency Based Training & Assessment (CBT&A); upgrading skills of TVET teachers and managers in the selected TVET providers; implementing pre-vocational training programs for selected trades and occupations in secondary and special education schools; and establishing effective project management, Mr Schoellhammer said. In response, Mr Battsogt appreciated the well-timed project which is to be realized for vocational training, and pledged to support this project. Total expense of the project has been estimated at USD 31.61 million. Money of USD 25 million will be granted from the ADB as a soft-loan, and the rest will be financed from the government.