Mongol Koosen fined with over 70 million MNT

The Independent Agency Against Corruption (IAAC) has demanded Mongol Koosen high school to pay a compensation of 72.5 million MNT for operating without a permit from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports for three years.

The amount of the compensation was determined based on an estimation of the three-year variable cost of the high school affiliated to the Mongolian University of Science and Technology, and will be reflected in the state budget once acquired, according to state inspectors.

The results of a recent investigation indicated that Mongol Koosen’s variable cost amounted to 7.6 million MNT in 2015, 43.91 million MNT in 2016, and 21 million MNT in 2017. These funds were reportedly drawn from the state budget.

Mongol Koosen was founded in 2015 and has been charging a yearly tuition fee of three million MNT per student since.

During a press conference on Tuesday, IAAC reported the results of its inspection at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports, and announced that it has started inspecting variable costs of every school in Mongolia in an effort to eliminate violations and prevent corruption in schools.

IAAC experts specialized in education assessed that the state shouldn’t fund variable costs of private schools and kindergartens with high tuition and recommended to use this fund to build new educational institutes instead.

IAAC believes that internal inspections should be held for schools and underlined the need to have an accountability system for such violations. Inspectors also stated that it was necessary for state-owned organizations to develop a new regulation for managing a better and efficient finance system in the education sector.