A second-grade student named G. starts school at 1:30 p.m. and finishes at 5:15 p.m. However, because of Ulaanbaatar City’s traffic congestion, he does not reach home until around 7:00 p.m., exhausted and drained. As soon as he arrives, he must immediately turn to his homework, otherwise he cannot possibly finish it all. His Mongolian language assignments alone require him to fill entire pages with copywriting, complete three to five exercises, do dictation, read books, and memorize poems. Beyond that, he is expected to complete nearly two hundred online tasks through the “Eduten” digital system. For a child who has already spent the entire day writing until his hands ache and calculating until his head feels heavy, it is no surprise that he has neither the energy nor the interest to tackle such an overwhelming amount of work. It is little wonder that he once startled his parents by saying, “I don’t want to go to school anymore.”
A similar situation can be seen with S., a fifth grader, who no longer does homework unless his mother is present. Watching videos on his phone and playing mobile games seem far more enjoyable than studying, which his mother admits is not surprising given the amount of assignments he is burdened with. She explained that when children are given too much homework, they become so discouraged that they do not even want to begin. Her son, she said, would spend his afternoons on his phone, and then just before bedtime, he would suddenly remember his assignments and frantically rummage through his schoolbag. Eventually, she was forced to take his phone away, and they came to an agreement that he would only be allowed to use it after completing his homework.
Fear-driven, overburdened children
Parents say that children as young as six years old, who have only just entered school, are already being subjected to meaningless repetition and endless copying that strain their small hands. Instead of being guided by curiosity and joy, they are pushed to do homework out of fear—fear of being scolded by their teachers if they fail to complete it.
The mother of M., a first-grade student at a private school, shared her concerns: her daughter attends five hours of lessons every day, and after school she is required to fill her notebooks with copywriting, numbers, drawings, and other repetitive tasks. Over time, this has left her discouraged and increasingly uninterested in learning. According to her, first graders should be given light and engaging homework that can be completed in 10 to 20 minutes and that sparks curiosity and allows them to think creatively. Instead, children are forced into monotonous copying that teachers merely grade, whether or not the child enjoys it. As a result, her daughter has already begun to feel burdened and reluctant to go to school.
Parents criticize both public and private schools for turning homework into a form of punishment. They argue that this system robs children of their curiosity, leaving them like weary, broken-down horses rather than eager learners. Teachers often justify the endless copywriting as handwriting practice, but in reality, it reduces children to tears, leaving their hands aching as they sit crying in class. For many, the alphabet itself becomes a frightening monster rather than a key to knowledge. Parents, too, find themselves stretched to their limits, battling alongside their children through tears and frustration late into the night. Many lament that such a situation seems to exist only in Mongolia.
In many developed countries, where children’s rights and creativity are valued, homework is kept to a minimum and in some cases is not given at all. Instead of monotonous drills, children are encouraged to take part in family activities, write daily journals, or do small creative projects. In Japan, for instance, elementary school students are typically assigned light, engaging tasks such as reading or keeping a simple diary. In Finland, homework is minimal, and in some schools it is not given at all; class hours are designed so that children focus fully on their lessons, practice during class, and then spend their free time playing and developing independently. In France, some schools have even gone so far as to ban homework altogether by law.
In today’s rapidly changing world, where artificial intelligence and digital technology are reshaping every sphere of life, Mongolia must approach education with much greater seriousness. The shortcomings of the current education system are plain to see: poor quality, inequality, and lack of accessibility. At the same time, society is becoming filled with shallow “empty intellectuals” rather than genuine critical thinkers. As one veteran teacher noted, “Everyone talks as if they understand education, but in truth, we remain far removed from treating it as a science.”
The relentless burdening of young children with meaningless, fear-driven tasks not only damages their enthusiasm for learning but also undermines the very foundation of Mongolia’s future in education.
Will the ‘10-Minute Rule’ work in our country?
In Mongolia today, more than 800,000 children study in 885 schools. Students in grades one to three typically have seven subjects, those in grades four and five take nine, sixth graders study 12, and from seventh grade onward, the number of subjects suddenly increases to as many as 18. From middle school, each subject is taught by a different teacher, and with this comes an even heavier load of homework. Yet, paradoxically, education experts point out that it is the youngest students—those in primary grades—who are most overburdened with excessive and age-inappropriate assignments.
Even the design and appearance of elementary school textbooks—their covers, illustrations, and colors—are often criticized for being unappealing to children. According to the National Institute for Educational Research’s 2023 report on developmental indicators for children aged three to 17, children between the ages of six and 10 learn best by observing and experimenting, their attention spans are short, and they tend to remember things through repetition and visualization. Their thinking is concrete and image-based rather than abstract. The report stressed that young children are naturally active and interested in physical activities, which means parents and caregivers need to understand how to support them at home—by encouraging sports such as football, swimming, and athletics, and by promoting fine motor skills through activities like lego, puzzles, drawing, coloring, cutting, and pasting. It also recommended that children be put to bed regularly between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., though in reality, Ulaanbaatar is at its busiest during those very hours.
The institute also advised schools to keep homework to a minimum. Many countries have already adopted what is known as the “10-Minute Rule”, a guideline that limits homework for younger students to 15 to 20 minutes, and then gradually increases the time by about 10 minutes per grade level. Mongolia has recently begun encouraging a similar standard: 20–40 minutes of homework for primary students, and 80–90 minutes for middle and high school students. Educational psychologists warn that overloaded homework does not improve learning outcomes. On the contrary, it makes students resent school, avoid learning new things, and eventually resort to lying to parents and teachers just to escape the pressure.
Middle schoolers left to drift
While other countries gradually increase homework as students move up the grades, in some Mongolian schools, middle schoolers have been largely left to their own devices. Teachers either assign no homework at all, or if they do, very few students bother to complete it. One mathematics teacher from Selenge Province remarked, “Almost no one does homework anymore. Giving it out is pointless.” Meanwhile, a physics and IT teacher from Tuv Province explained that although the system officially promotes student-centered learning, the curriculum itself contradicts this idea. Each subject crams in too much material to be covered in class, forcing teachers to assign large amounts of homework just to reinforce lessons. He added, however, that he personally tries to integrate homework across subjects, such as combining information technology with English, so that the workload is reduced and students spend less time at home repeating exercises.
A recent parents’ meeting at “Shine Mongol Harumafuji” school even caused a stir online because of its radically student-friendly policies. Teachers there announced that children would not be forced into competition with one another, that not every child had to excel, and that homework would be limited to a single sheet of paper each day. Students would no longer need to carry heavy backpacks filled with books; instead, only notebooks, pens, and pencils would be required. Parents were astonished, describing it as a break from Mongolia’s “traditional” approach to schooling.
Unequal system in urgent need of change
If all schools in the country adopted such child-centered practices, it would be transformative. Unfortunately, the reality is starkly different: public and private schools, city and rural schools, central and provincial schools all deliver education at varying levels of quality, perpetuating inequality. It is no secret that a unified standard across the education sector has long ceased to exist.
Unless Mongolia reforms the structure of homework, reduces its punitive and exhausting nature, and updates the curriculum to match modern educational needs, our children risk not just falling behind their global peers, but becoming alienated from learning itself. In a rapidly changing world, where innovation and creativity matter most, clinging to outdated and burdensome practices may leave us dangerously out of step with the times.
