Kuanysh Tastanbekova

Kazakhstan is a newly independent country that emerged in the international arena after the dismiss of the Soviet Union. The shift from soviet style centralized planned economy to western-style liberal market economy required significant transformations in the higher education system. Alongside diversification of provision through allowing private education, integration into the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) through the implementation of three cycles of higher education qualifications, the National System of Education Quality Assessment was established. However, admitting students into the process of educational governance and quality assurance has started only recently (since 2012) with the establishment of a non-governmental higher education accreditation board. This chapter observes emerging forms of student engagement at micro, meso, and macro levels based on the analysis of higher education legislature, policy recommendations by international agencies (such as World Bank and OECD), and data from the National Center for Education Quality Assessment. Kazakhstan's experience of ambiguous forms and invisible procedures is not unique for the post-soviet states where old top-down education management persists.

Since gaining independence after the dissolution of the USSR, the education system in Kazakhstan has undergone significant reforms. The retention of highly qualified teachers is crucial for the successful progress of the education sphere. However, employing the majority of the workforce (26.5%, almost one million people), education is one of the lowest paying sectors. Low pay causes a lack of popularity of the teaching profession among youth; results in an aging and highly feminized workforce; and harms prestige, status and esteem of teachers, thus intensifying turnover and making retention of qualified teachers difficult. This study proposes the use of three-tiered temporal, regional, and gender payroll data to analyze the prestige, status, and esteem of the teaching profession in Kazakhstan. It argues that although improving a social package is important, fundamental reforms of the education payment system could be the most effective measure to improve the prestige and status of teachers.

В данной статье рассматривается языковая политика в сфере школьного образования в Японии с фокусом на проблемах обучения японскому языку как второму и английскому как иностранному языкам. В 1980-е годы в японских школах стали появляться дети японцы, вернувшиеся в Японию после продолжительного проживания заграницей в отрыве от родной языковой среды в связи с длительными командировками родителей.
С начала 1990-х увеличение иностранных граждан, прибывающих в Японию по рабочей визе, привело и к увеличению детей иностранцев в японских школах, не владеющих японским языком. В таких условиях появилась острая необходимость создания и развития системы обучения японскому языку как второму. Однако
законодательная база для создания такой системы была утверждена японским правительством только в 2014 году. В свою очередь, не смотря на то, что изучение английского языка присутствовало в школьной программе с момента создания системы школьного образования, т.е. с конца 19-го века, наибольшее внимание развитию системы обучения английскому языку как иностранному, стало уделяться только с начала 2000-х годов в условиях ускоряющихся темпов глобализации и ужесточения конкуренции на международном рынке труда.
Автор на основе анализа законодательных документов, статистических данных и выводов научных работ по данной тематике, показывает влияние глобализации и иммиграционной политики на языковую политику в сфере образования, систематизирует существующие проблемы в области обучения японскому языку как второму и английскому как иностранному и предлагаемые японским правительством меры по их решению.

Education reformation process in Kazakhstan can be divided into three stages. First stage took almost a decade after independence, when education reforms led by the rhetoric of international donors represented reduction of public education expenditure. Second stage lasted another ten years that started in the dawn of new century, and the government passed hasty reforms with a purpose to integrate Kazakhstan’s education into so-called “international educational space”. And finally, reforms of ongoing decade have been implemented under the slogan of developing Kazakhstan’s original way of educational innovation. It took form of establishment of elite university and schools for gifted children, where progressive teaching and learning experience (in three languages, Kazakh, Russian and English) is supposed to be disseminated to all secondary schools. The success of this ambitious plan fully depends on existence of highly qualified teachers. That is why former teacher training institutes across the country were reorganized in Centers of Excellence where teachers undergo three steps of training programs developed by famous western university. Significant funds are funneled into these professional development programs. Meanwhile reform of pre-service teacher education has undergone mainly structural transformations and was rarely prioritized by the government. This study analyses education legislature and policy papers and indicates recent trends in teacher education reforms and issues that they cause. Particularly, this paper argues that radical and fast changes that were brought by these reforms cannot guarantee expected result due to such reasons like teachers’ low motivation, gap between rural schools and schools for gifted children which practice is used for dissemination trough in-service training.

This presentation was made at  IX World Congress of International Council of Central and Eastern Europe Studies held in Makuhari, Japan, on 3-8th of August, 2015.
With a collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, five Central Asian republics have gained independence and full freedom to build a new country in according with new aspirations and expectations. Consequently, education has been delegated crucial role to nurture new nation with a strong sense of belonging to this new country, and at the same time has been challenged by harsh rules of market economy and neoliberal values to educate and sustain competitive nation in the era of globalization. Thus, educational reforms have been implemented one after another, causing significant changes to contents and structure. Some of reforms are in progress and their outcomes are premature to be analyzed, but others have already brought to concrete results that are full of ambiguity. The biggest challenge is to preserve positive achievements of soviet education and to fit into requirements of global educational trends.
The purpose of this round table is to discuss variety of educational challenges in four Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). Young scholars from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia bring together problems of language education in Kazakhstan, citizenship education in Uzbekistan, school enrollment gap in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and problems of educational rights of labor migrants from Central Asian countries in Russia. We will draw commonalities and differences in the issues of nation-building and meeting challenges of globalization in these countries, and discuss the role of Russian educational influence.

This presentation was made at IX World Congress of International Council on Central and Eastern Europe Studies held in Makuhari, Japan, on 3-8th of August, 2015.
From the very moment of gaining independence and ever since education system of Kazakhstan has been reformed. Education system which was inherited from soviet time was criticized as being ideologically dogmatic by content, overcentralized and obsolete by structure, and, consequently, not competitive in an appropriate for new era way. Thus, reforms were carried out with a purpose to remove dogmatism from textbooks and way of teaching, to decentralize the governance and to modernize the system, and to bring competition or values of free market in every aspect of education. All taken together these reforms were believed to promote fast, significant and successful change in education system particularly and in society in general. Have those reforms achieved their purposes? What kind of change did they bring? Were these changes positive? If they were, why so many people are nostalgic about soviet education?
This presentation analyzes education reforms in Kazakhstan, and invites to rethink the value of “post-soviet” legacy in education of Central Asia

本稿は多民族・多言語国家であるカザフスタンにおける少数民族の言語権の保障の社会的公正性を少数民族が受ける言語教育の比重の分析を通して考察するものである。少数民族の母語で教育を受ける権利が保障される一方で、マジョリティ言語であるカザフ語とロシア語の学習も義務付けられている。学校教育において母語、カザフ語とロシア語、さらに外国語（英語）の学習の負担が大きく、それに割り当てられる時間数の確保は他の教科目の学習時間数から引かれることによってなされるため、これは少数民族の質の高い教育を受ける権利を侵害しており、さらに高等教育へのアクセスにも支障をきたしている。言語教育政策は言語集団の規模や民族的属性のみならず、その言語集団の中の弱者の権利を保障することが求められており、それは社会的公正性を確保することにつながる。