A 2003 survey found 199 teachers teaching 9,080 students of Japanese at 67 different institutions.
In the 1970s and 1980s, only 3-5 students enrolled each year in the single Japanese course offered by the National University of Mongolia; Mongolians who went to Japan as international scholarship students typically had little language preparation beforehand, and took courses at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies to catch up before beginning their subject-area studies.
[5] NUM established a full major in the subject in 1990; one school also began offering Japanese language instruction to primary and secondary students that year.
[7] The expectation of most learners of Japanese in Mongolia is that courses should focus on the teaching of kanji, to the exclusion of other aspects of the language; teachers report that this is especially a problem due to pressure from parents of students at the elementary and secondary levels.
The number of examinees rose by 75% between 2003 and 2006; as in China and South Korea, but differing from other Asian countries, the Level 2 examination, aimed at students who have completed 600 contact hours of instruction, is the most widely attempted, and the Level 4 examination, aimed at beginning students with 150 contact hours of instruction, is the least popular.