The activities described below reflect the planning and implementation of distance learning project for the vastly scattered population of Mongolia, and may be a useful example for practitioners and program directors in other regions of the world.

Planning and Training

Before the learning system was designed, a careful analysis of the women's needs was carried out in three of the Gobi provinces. Over 140 families, provincial and district officials, and community leaders were consulted on the women's most pressing needs. The nomadic women themselves expressed the desire to learn livestock rearing techniques, upgrade their literacy skills, learn more effective forms of family care, and acquire income generating skills that would rely on available raw materials. The analysis was carried out by The National Coordinating Committee (NCC), comprised of members of the Ministry of Science and Education in the capital, Ulaanbaatar (where the NCC was located), the Educational Research Institute, Mongol Radio, and other educational institutions. The group's role was to coordinate, monitor, and evaluate the Gobi Women's Project, as well as manage finance. The NCC received regular reports from local coordinating committees within each Gobi district.

The first year of the project was devoted to establishing an infrastructure, developing the curriculum, and training people for certain roles. The chosen instructors were well-qualified local people, usually doctors, teachers, and veterinarians, and many of them nomads. The project also, in the first year, accomplished the following tasks:

• set up consultative committees at the national and local levels;
  
• set up a radio studio in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, with the state-owned Mongol Radio;
  
• equipped three local radio studios which reached all six provinces;
  
• trained producers and technicians; and
  
• developed centrally-produced learning materials dealing with local concerns (print and radio lessons on health, income generation, and literacy) with the help of international consultants from UNESCO, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, the United States, and Mongolia.
  

Teacher-training was developed based on a cascade model, where one person from each of the ten pilot districts would be trained and then expected to coach ten teachers from their districts. The teachers had access to 14 jeeps, so that they could travel to the homes of their learners. For the last step, 1,500 Gobi women from 10 districts in the 6 provinces were selected to participate in the pilot phase, and 240 radios and 25,000 batteries were provided to the women.

The Pilot Phase

The pilot phase, which ran from January to May 1995, involved a smaller amount of learners in order to collect feedback before the main phase of the project. The first step was a 3-day crash course in district centers, during which the 1,500 learners received booklets, pens, paper, batteries, and radios, and had an opportunity to meet with visiting teachers for the first time. Each teacher was responsible for 15 learners, and was expected to visit with each learner once or twice a month. After the crash course, the women took the learning materials back to their homes, and completed the tasks requested of them in the booklets and through radio programs. Because nomadic homes were so far from each other, the women were encouraged to involve their families in activities, and many husbands and children provided a great deal of support for their wives and mothers. After the pilot phase was carried out for five months, feedback was gathered from questionnaires and reports; an evaluation of the pilot phase then indicated areas that needed improvement before the start of the next phase.

The Main Phase

The project's main phase began in January, 1996. This phase involved 15,000 Gobi women, ages 15-45, in all 62 districts of the Gobi region. The 23 booklets were created and distributed in Ulaanbaatar, and took 1-7 weeks to reach the learners. The topics covered in the booklets were, as follows:

• health: family planning, hygiene, nutrition, first aid;
  
• survival and income generation: producing wool, refining camel fleece, making felt/camel saddles/traditional garments/boots, recycling old clothes into new articles, crocheting, embroidery, quilting (felt and leather), baking bread, learning traditional recipes, preparing milk products, preparing meat for drying and sausages, growing vegetables, using plants and flowers for medicinal or cosmetic use, producing dye, converting animal dung into fuel, livestock rearing techniques, processing hides, producing leather;
  
• business: price negotiating, planning, production, accounting, marketing and selling products; and
  
• literacy and numeracy: Mongolian fairy tales, mathematics, civics, the environment, current affairs.

The radio programs, also produced in Ulaanbaatar, related to the booklets and addressed the same skills. Sunrise, a half hour general program, and Shortcut, a program in support of literacy, were well-received by the people and became extremely popular. Locally produced newsletters, teachers booklets, and demonstration materials acted as supplements to the booklets and dealt with specific local needs and circumstances. The 620 visiting teachers traveled to the women's homes to check each woman's progress, help them with any problems they encountered in the print or radio materials, give them supplementary materials. The teachers also occasionally met with groups of women in the district centers. Lastly, information centers were set up in each district, with a room used for:

• providing a meeting place for groups;
  
• exhibiting booklets, leaflets, and posters;
  
• holding teaching sessions and demonstrations;
  
• keeping a progress chart of the women's achievements; and
  
• housing exhibitions of the women's work.

The women appeared to be active, satisfied, and productive, as they learned many new skills, enjoyed the interaction with teachers and other learners, and gained a sense of self-sufficiency within their environment.

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