Structural Adjustment Reforms, Ten Years Later

Abstract

The nation of Mongolia is in the process of a difficult and often frustrating transition to a democratic and free market society. The structural adjustment necessary for this transition can have disproportionate impacts on the education and human resource (EHR) sector if the sector’s key role in the transition is not carefully articulated. Serious damage to the present education and training system could even cause a decline in public acceptance of the structural adjustment process itself. (Government of Mongolia 1993: i) These introductory lines of the 1993 Mongolia Sector Review mark a historic moment: the submission to structural adjustment reforms in education. Compared to other sectors, the educational sector in Mongolia was relatively slow in giving way to international pressure to “adjust,” or more accurately, to downsize educational provisions. In education, rampant structural adjustment reforms were carried out in 1997 and 1998, and these reforms were met with vociferous public protests. In education, the adjustments were commonly regarded as externally imposed, and therefore encountered no “public acceptance of the structural adjustment process” (Government of Mongolia 1993: i). In more of a preview than an actual review, the 1993 Mongolia Sector Review outlined how the educational sector would be restructured, as well as how it would be aligned with the overall structural adjustment policies (SAPs) of the 1990s.KeywordsGross Domestic ProductStructural AdjustmentShadow EconomyInformal EconomyAsian Development BankThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.