Evaluating Mongolia TEE

Cory Ellison writes...

Accreditation visits are not something most people look forward to. The closest analogy is cleaning your house for guests who are specifically trained to find what you missed, then staying. At the same time, they read your policies, interview your staff, sit in on your classes and ask careful questions about where you are headed. That was the week that Increase member organisation Mongolia TEE had when the Visiting Evaluation Team (VET, pictured above with Mongolia TEE staff and board members) sent by the Asia Theological Association (ATA) arrived for their review.

The surprising part was that it went well.

Over several days the team met with the board, observed classes and talked at length with staff. The conversations were substantive. Some of the questions were hard. However, the atmosphere stayed warm and it was clear the evaluators understood something real about theological education in Mongolia and about the effort required to build something rooted in the local context rather than borrowed wholesale from elsewhere.

Ganbold from Mongolia TEE reflected afterwards on how useful the visit had been, particularly because it gave clearer form to things he had already sensed but found difficult to name. Altantugs, the chair of the Mongolia TEE board, called the VET report 'prophetic'. Not in the sense of predicting outcomes, but in the sense of helping a community see more clearly what it can be.

In the end, that was what made the visit significant. It did not feel like a compliance exercise or an audit looking for failures, because it was people with experience across Asia who took the work seriously enough to speak honestly about our future. Please continue praying for Mongolia TEE as we move into the coming year with clearer direction and fresh energy.