Today is Students’ Day. There are more than 160,000 students
in the country of whom 130,000 are in Ulaanbaatar. The Government has allocated
MNT18.7 billion for subsidized transportation for 80,000 students. There have
been many complaints, however, especially about the electronic cards, many of
which were found to be invalid just one day after registration.

One reason for this is that the financial year starts on
January 1 while the academic year is from September 1. Altogether 80,000 cards
were issued by the Finance Ministry on the basis of last year’s number of
students. The number this year is more and 15,000 students could not get a
card. Mongolian Students Union Vice President D.Batbayar has said they have
talked about the situation with the Public Transportation Board and Union of
the Large Bus Services and agreed that 16,000 more cards will be issued.