Kazakhstan programme open seminar series: Recent Episodes
Cambridge University
The seminar series 'Internationalisation and Educational Reform in Eastern European and the Commonwealth of Independent States' is organised by the Kazakhstan programme research team as a platform for analysis, discussion and critique of the recent educational reforms in the Newly Independent nations of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states. From a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives the questions that we invite us all to explore are: - the Russian/Soviet inheritance and how this continues to shape education policy and practice - the relationship of educational reform to the development of post independence national identity - the internationalisation of education reform, the global education space, policy 'borrowing' and the indigenisation of international practice. All are welcome!
Nation Building and State Building in Post Soviet Azerbaijan: History, Concepts, and Tensions.
The territorial dispute between China and India plays а significant role not only because of the large land in dispute but also because of the current rise of China and India in regional and global level.
In this presentation, I attempt to stretch the discourse surrounding the evolution of the Kazakh language from a political to a socioeconomic perspective.
The status of the superpower of the USSR after WWII became a reality due to its scientific and technological achievements.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the growing income distribution inequality as an acute and chronic disease widespread not only in middle-income and developing countries but also in industrialized ones. The main purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of why unequal income distribution is possible.
The paper reviews the experiences of the three Newly Independent Caspian (NIC) states, namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in developing their energy sectors during the two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The president of Kazakhstan in his annual address to the nation in 2009 raised objective to increase local content (LC) in Kazakhstan. LC policy is defined as "an industrial policy to incentivise or mandate a greater degree of local procurement, employment and capital accumulation" (Kalyuzhnova et al. 2014).
Over the past one decade, the significance given to ICT and Internet's use within the context of the developing countries' educational system through various national initiatives has been only increasing. However, some available data have revealed that the extent to which such initiatives have been able to be successful differed among the countries, therefore necessitating more academic attention and investigation of this emerging field.
The higher education system in Kazakhstan has changed dramatically over the last years. However, transformation of higher education with implementation of international practices is a difficult process.
This paper is a part of a three-year study, 'Internationalisation and reform of secondary schooling in Kazakhstan', jointly conducted by an international team of UK- and Kazakhstan-based researchers in 2012-2014.
Like many countries, Kazakhstan aspires to advance its school education through the adoption of innovative ideas.
Creativity is now essential in today's rapidly changing world and global economy. To enable youth to thrive in an uncertain future, in education, it is necessary to acknowledge creativity as an essential life skill.
Networking for teacher learning and professional development in Kazakhstani secondary schools. Networking in Kazakhstani schools is not a new phenomenon, however it had been limited to the disciplinary differentiation or the school localisation basis.
Research findings from a range of countries provide conflicting evidence as to the social and educational consequences of single-sex schooling.
This presentation sheds light on findings from a doctoral study on the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their individual technology use within an Arabic language teaching context in Egypt.
Kazakhstan is a country undergoing massive educational reform including the introduction of a trilingual policy in all schools.
Since 2012, Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) has been working together with departments of the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) group to produce external assessments which test the knowledge and skills present in the curriculum introduced under the Integrated Programme of Development (IPD).
This paper sets out to examine the application of a Western construct of the three primary purposes of national summative assessment to post-Soviet context undergoing educational reform. These purposes are defined as assessment for: learning; certification and school accountability (Black, 1998).
This paper is a part of a larger study looking at the social aspects of transition from school to higher education in Kazakhstan.
Presenting author: Dr Mariam Attia, Research Associate at Durham University, UK on behalf of the AHRC project team.
With increased researcher mobility and wider access to information, academic institutions within the UK are experiencing internationalisation processes reflected – among other things – in the surging numbers of researchers conducing research in more than one language (Robinson-Pant, 2009). This presentation draws on two AHRC projects: Researching Multilingually (November 2011 – December 2012) and Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law, and the State (April 2014 – March 2017). It focuses on 44 reflective pieces by researchers involved with the AHRC-funded network, and attempts to look into a) the development of researcher awareness about the possibilities and complexities of doing research in more than one language, b) the nature of such possibilities and complexities, and c) implications for researcher development.
Researchers are also encouraged to engage with the website which we continue to develop as a knowledge resource flowing from the AHRC-funded project: http://www.researching-multilingually-at-borders.com/
Reference: Robinson-Pant, A. (2009) ‘Changing Academies: exploring international PhD students’ perspectives on ‘host’ and ‘home’ universities’, Higher Education Research and Development, 28(4), 417-429.
Drawing on the critical strand of literature on organisational learning (e.g. Driver 2002; McKinlay and Starkey 1998; Messer and Jordan 2008; Niesche 2011 and Thomson 2014) and taking the case of the 35 NIS partner schools, we seek to understand the role of an emerging model of organisational learning in the process of adoption of reform and innovation in Kazakhstan.
1) One of the persistent laments of analysts focusing on the Kazakhstan postsecondary education system is the absence of consistent, and, in some cases, reliable data for comparing institutions, on the one hand, and, on the other, for generating a reliable summary of the postsecondary education system as a whole.
2) This seminar explores the narratives of Pamiri men and women who were in primary and secondary school during the brutal conflict that divided the country in the wake of its independence.
The paper sets out to consider the opinion which, at its bluntest, suggests that one should not work (in educational development) in a country which does not respect the principles of a liberal democracy, which has a poor reputation in terms of human rights and or has an autocratic government. The paper argues that such an opinion must rest on some sort of consequentialist balance sheet of the actual and anticipated consequences of committing to such work or declining to do so – and this takes it into some of the problems of applying such an equation. The paper also invites caution in the assessments that westerners make of countries portrayed as a ‘undemocratic’ and the importance of taking into account, for example, history, trajectory and context.
The purpose of the Forum is to discuss questions pertinent to educational development in Kazakhstan. The main participants of the Forum are 25 Kazakhstani scholars, who are currently doing their Master’s, PhD and post-doctoral research in the UK through the support of Kazakhstani government programme Bolashak (‘Future’). The forum will be structured around three sessions and one roundtable discussion, which will focus on the questions of education policy, reform and innovation, adaptation of international practices, policy implementation and future educational priorities. This is an intention of the organising committee to make this Forum a traditional annual event hosted in Cambridge.
Organising committee: Kazbek Kashkabayev, Bolashak scholar, Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge; Klara Murdildina, Bolashak intern, Central Asian Forum, University of Cambridge; Seyfu lmalik Sultanov, Bolashak intern, Central Asian Forum, University of Cambridge.
Morning Session
The purpose of the Forum is to discuss questions pertinent to educational development in Kazakhstan. The main participants of the Forum are 25 Kazakhstani scholars, who are currently doing their Master’s, PhD and post-doctoral research in the UK through the support of Kazakhstani government programme Bolashak (‘Future’). The forum will be structured around three sessions and one roundtable discussion, which will focus on the questions of education policy, reform and innovation, adaptation of international practices, policy implementation and future educational priorities. This is an intention of the organising committee to make this Forum a traditional annual event hosted in Cambridge.
Organising committee: Kazbek Kashkabayev, Bolashak scholar, Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge; Klara Murdildina, Bolashak intern, Central Asian Forum, University of Cambridge; Seyfu lmalik Sultanov, Bolashak intern, Central Asian Forum, University of Cambridge.
1) Abstract: Globalization has a profound effect on the mission and goals of education worldwide. One of its most visible manifestations is the worldwide endorsement of the idea of “education for global citizenship,” which has been enthusiastically supported by national governments, politicians, and policy-makers across different nations. What is the role of international schools in implementing the idea of “education for global citizenship”? How do these schools attempt to create a culturally unbiased global curriculum when the adopted models have been developed by Western societies and at the very least are replete with (Western) cultural values, traditions, and biases?
2) The International comparisons and benchmarking have become a major influence on education policy- making in Central Asia and other post-Soviet states. Joining the international student achievement studies such as PISA, TIMSS, and TALIS have brought significant benefits to participating countries, while also enabling the new political technologies of governing the post-Soviet education space by numbers. International benchmarking, and the “best practices” that come along with it, have contributed to the production of educational knowledge that not only attempts to explain education phenomena but also constructs “norms” embedded in education policies and practices.
1) The call for reflective practitioners remains ever present with the persistent demand for quality provision in education (UNESCO, 2014).
2) This presentation is based upon an empirical paper that sets one particular form of national assessment against the wider picture of what teachers say they set out to achieve for their pupils during school. This starts with the collection of teachers’ attitudes towards assessment that return the range of where teachers see themselves in terms of meeting their own definitions of students’ needs. Next, these attitudes inform on whether satisfactory achievement of any overall teaching mission (Korthagen, 2004) is seen as possible or not.
1) This article examines how, in the context of the increasing deprofessionalization of the teaching professional both nationally and internationally, teachers have attempted to reshape the notion of “professionalism” in a post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, where teachers function within a top-down, bureaucratic education system.
2) This presentation looks at existing collaborative practices in Kazakhstani schools, such as the pedagogical council, methodological council and methodological subject units which were inherited from the Soviet education system. Their role in the past as well as their potential to become collaborative teacher learning platform in the future is examined.
1) The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 required the system of education, as with all other Soviet institutions, to adjust if it were to survive in the new Russian conditions. It was faced, above all, with the need to identify a new social and economic role as the education system of a radically different society and economy. This raised fundamental questions that required urgent answer. What was its purpose? Who should it serve? How was it to be organized and financed?
2) This project explored the development of the Serbian 2001 civic education policy, a policy which marked the start of an all-encompassing education reform that was hailed as one of the tools in assisting the country’s transition from various forms of authoritarianism to a modern democracy. It was also a strong political signal that the then governing elite was dedicated to joining Serbia with other post-communist countries on their way ‘back to Europe’.
The goal of this seminar is two-fold: to address the professional teacher identity concerns from the perspective of gender and mass communication studies and explore the concepts of autonomy and accountability in secondary education.
Action Research - Presenters: Professor Colleen McLaughlin (University of Sussex and University of Cambridge), Dr Ros Mclellan, Michael Fordham and Nazipa Ayubayeva (University of Cambridge)
School-based Learning - Presenter: Professor John Elliott, Chief Editor of the International Journal of Lesson and Learning Studies (IJLLS) and the Journal of the World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS).
Special needs education and inclusion is an important but not dominant aspect of current education reform in Kazakhstan. This presentation will explore why some children continue to be marginalised from schooling and it will locate the current struggle for inclusion in the context of international attempts to create Education for All (EFA).
This presentation has two purposes: to attempt to chart the teacher identity of school teachers Kazakhstan Programme within Kazakhstan; and, to inform upon methods of educational research appropriate to a Kazakhstani context.
Dr Peeter Mehisto talks about the forces, mechanisms and counterweights for building bilingual education systems and Lynne Stevenson & Helen Imam talk about the implementation of the NIS trilingual policy into the curriculum.
Seminar presentation by Professor Timothy Reagan, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan on language policy and education in Kazakhstan
Seminar presentation by Dr David Frost, Kazakhstan Programme, Faculty of Education on the role of school principals in education reform in Kazakhstan.
Seminar presentation by Antonia Santalova, DPhil Candidate at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford on school autonomy policies in three former Soviet countries of Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Recording of the seminar 'Reform at Scale: The Centre of Excellence Programme of Teacher Development in Kazakhstan' delivered by Dr Elaine Wilson and Dr Fay Turner from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. The seminar took place at the Faculty of Education on Thursday 10th October 2013. The seminar was organised and presented by Dr Olena Fimyar.
Seminar on ethics and politics of the international transfer of educational policy and practice by Prof. David Bridges, Director of Research (Kazakhstan and Mongolia Programmes), University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education
Seminar on evolving child welfare policies in Central Asia by Anel Kulakhmetova, PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge
Seminar on cultural and institutional dimensions of transformation by Prof. Dr. Giedrius Jucevicius, Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania)
Seminar on gifted education in Kazakhstan by Dr Natallia Yakavets. The discussion that followed this seminar can be listened to at http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1459800 at 27 minutes 55 seconds.
Seminar and discussion on action research in Kazakhstan by Dr Kairat Kurakbayev and Darkhan Bilyalov..
Dr Liz Winter talks about a case study of the Unified National Test (UNT) in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan Programme Research Team and the Faculty of Education were delighted to welcome Iveta Silova to Cambridge with a short research visit, during which she delivered two seminars and had individual meetings with PhD students and staff. Iveta Silova is an Associate Professor and Director of Comparative and International Education program at the College of Education, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. Her research and publications cover a range of issues critical to understanding post-socialist education transformation processes in the context of globalization, including gender equity trends in Eastern/Central Europe and Central Asia, minority/multicultural education policies in the former Soviet Union, as well as the scope, nature, and implications of private tutoring in a cross-national perspective. Iveta is the co-editor (with Noah W. Sobe) of a quarterly peer-reviewed journal *"European Education: Issues and Studies.". *
Iveta’s recent books include:
- Globalization on the Margins (2011)
- Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)reading the global in comparative education (2010)
- How NGOs React: Globalization and Education Reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia (2008 coedited with Gita Steiner-Khamsi),
- From Sites of Occupation to Symbols of Multiculturalism: Re-conceptualizing Minority Education in Post-Soviet Latvia (2006)
Kazakhstan Programme Research Team and the Faculty of Education were delighted to welcome Iveta Silova to Cambridge with a short research visit, during which she delivered two seminars and had individual meetings with PhD students and staff. Iveta Silova is an Associate Professor and Director of Comparative and International Education program at the College of Education, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA. Her research and publications cover a range of issues critical to understanding post-socialist education transformation processes in the context of globalization, including gender equity trends in Eastern/Central Europe and Central Asia, minority/multicultural education policies in the former Soviet Union, as well as the scope, nature, and implications of private tutoring in a cross-national perspective. Iveta is the co-editor (with Noah W. Sobe) of a quarterly peer-reviewed journal *"European Education: Issues and Studies.". *
Iveta’s recent books include:
- Globalization on the Margins (2011)
- Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)reading the global in comparative education (2010)
- How NGOs React: Globalization and Education Reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Mongolia (2008 coedited with Gita Steiner-Khamsi),
- From Sites of Occupation to Symbols of Multiculturalism: Re-conceptualizing Minority Education in Post-Soviet Latvia (2006)
This is a recording of the seminar on 'Higher Education Reform in Lithuania: Marketisation and administration versus democratisation?' delivered by two invited Professors from Kaunas University of Technology, Palmira Jucevičienė and Robertas Jucevičius. The seminar took place on Monday, 19 November 2012. The seminar was chaired by Olena Fimyar. Professor David Bridges acted as discussant.
(A short description of the current audio) At this seminar Olena Fimyar discusses her work published in I. Silova (ed.) (2010) Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)reading the global in comparative education, Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 61-91. Link to the chapter: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=14793679&volume=14&chapterid=1905476&show=abstract
Presentation by Dr Colleen McLaughlin for the Faculty of Education Centre of Excellence project