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| “The name Amina comes from an ancient Arabic word which means honest and helpful”, says mother Maral Khuandag. © UNICEF Mongolia/2017/ Mungunkhishig Batbaatar |
“When I grow up, I’m going to have three jobs – a policewoman, a doctor and a teacher!” says 5-year-old Amina. This ambitious little girl, from a Kazakh ethnic minority family, lives with her parents, brother and sister in Khan-Uul district of Ulaanbaatar, the nation’s capital. In the same breath, she adds, “But I might become an artist because I learned how to sing and draw from the teacher on the TV kindergarten.” Amina, along with more than 2,000 other preschool children, has been following the UNICEF-supported home-based, distance learning programme aired on Mongolian National Broadcaster (MNB), the country’s biggest TV channel. The video lessons are supplemented by a workbook for children and a guidebook for parents, as well as regular counseling and monitoring from local education specialists.
