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38ФИЛОСОФСКИЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
УДК 37.01 ББК 74.044.3
M.I. Kudritskaya
PARADOXES OF EDUCATION REFORM IN KAZAKHSTAN: A VOICE FROM INSIDE
The article is concerned with the paradoxes that arise in the course of Education Reform in Kazakhstan. A personal insight is provided by a university lecturer in comparison with the official point of view. A number of issues are disputed, such as National Standardized Test format, academic mobility of students and faculty, and the elective courses choice procedures. Key words: Education Reform, National Standardized Test, academic mobility, elective
courses.
Nowadays the main goal of a person's education in Kazakhstan is building up their social and professional competence, ability to rationally use information and effectively live and work in the quickly changing world. This aim is proclaimed by the State policy and is absolutely noble. Education reform in Kazakhstan is well on the way and it has already been recognized by the world educational community when Kazakhstan joined the Bologna process. But is everything as smooth and efficient as we'd like it to be? Can we speak of social equality in the sphere of education? Do all students get fair chances in obtaining State Scholarships? Are students really satisfied with the quality of education they are getting in higher educational institutions? Answers to these and many other questions inescapably make us face a few paradoxical situations that have recently developed in the educational sphere of Kazakhstan.
Let's take a brief look at the educational system as it is now and see how it differs from what it used to be in the Soviet Kazakhstan. As a person who got her education in Soviet school and later in a higher educational institution, who witnessed the ro painful transformation staying inside the educational system, I recon I can suggest a § point of view that might be of interest for ^ those who are investigating social changes s in Post-Soviet areas.
There is an abyss between what schools used to be 30 years ago and what they are now. Technical revolution and computerization played a great role, but apart from that lots of things changed beginning with schooling period and finishing with final examinations. When I was at school (1972-1982), my first teacher taught us how to write with ink: "Put your pen cautiously into the ink-pot, just the end of it, not the whole pen! Write slowly; do not press hard or you'll tear the paper with the pen. Avoid quick movement not to make an ugly spot on your work." But already in the second half of the first year ball-point pens revolution swept away all the shaky ink-pen writing skills she had managed to build in us.
All the subjects were compulsory; even the topics we studied in those subjects had been approved by the Communist party. Ideological load was especially heavy on humanitarian sciences: one of the major foci in History, for example, was the study of the Communist party Meetings and documents that had been adopted.
Ideological idols were imprinted into youngsters from a very early age. Every child of 9-10 years became a Young Pioneer: it was a horrible shame not to be allowed to join the red-ties wearing young generation. I remember how happy I was at the age of 9, when they had just tied the silk red triangle around my neck: now I was on the
way to become a Communist one day! All extracurricular activities were ideologically coloured ; every child should have absorbed the idea that the Soviet Union was the best and most progressive country in the world thanks to the Communist Party that had lead us all to the state of entire happiness of the whole society in general and every person in particular.
Final examinations taken after 10 years of schooling were either oral or written, taken in the same school and evaluation was totally in the hands of the teachers. So it happened sometimes, when you came to compete with people from other schools, you might discover they were completely unaware of the topics that had made your school life a nightmare, but had got higher grades and thus were preferred in the higher education enrollment procedures! Validity and objectivity of final examinations left much to be desired; it seemed a dead end in itself. Having successfully passed all the five compulsory final examinations (Russian Language and Literature, Physics, Algebra, Geometry and History) you got a certificate, the average grade of which was an important contribution to the higher educational institutions enrollment procedure in addition to the results of the four entrance examinations. We spent the entire summer either preparing for or taking exams!
However, in Independent Kazakhstan with the leap of technical development things considerably changed. Now National Standardized Test is taken by every student of high school on completion of their eleven years of education. At present it includes five subjects, four of which are compulsory: Math, Native language (Kazakh or Russian), History of Kazakhstan, and the Second language (Kazakh or Russian). The choice of the last, fifth subject determines the specialty that the student will train for in a higher educational institution. For example, those who choose English as their fifth subject will be able to choose between a few specialties, including International relations, international law, foreign philology, teaching English as a foreign language and regional
studies. Scores, required for enrollment in a higher educational institution, vary from 40 (out of 120) in 2005 to 60 (out of 125) in 2007 and back to 50 (out of 125) in 2009. Test format is constituted by multiple choice questions with one correct answer of the suggested five choices. The result of the test is published on the day following the date of the test and becomes the determining factor of granting students with the state scholarship in the University of their Choice. Then each school report the result to the local State Education Department and rating of schools is made.
Quick, transparent, objective and valid procedure - what a contrast to what we used to take as our finals! Where is the paradox? - You may ask me. At first sight the system is quite logical and allows assigning state scholarship to the most promising candidates. That is right; this is what it has been designed for. However, now it leads to a number of serious discrepancies in school education.
The biggest problem is hidden in the test format. It requires of the student the knowledge of a certain amount of information, which inevitably leads to the students' effort to learn these certain facts and data rather than study creatively and try to develop competences. What kind of competences? Those that are declared by the school reform as the new target of education: "To form an intellectually, physically and spiritually developed citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan, satisfying their essential need in obtaining the education that would ensure success in this quickly changing world" [1].
Another inconsistency lies in the process of test preparation. Since school rating is based on the test result, and determines whether school will get a favourable position in investments, the last year of their school students spend preparing for the test. Regular lessons in the tested subjects are substituted with endless test questions solution, and this hardly can contribute to the development of students' personality or any competences at all with the only exception of test-taking skill. Add to this dreadful boredom and
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quick, strong backwash effect - and you will see why neither school-leavers and their parents nor teachers are happy with the National Standardized Test. Thus, we claim to develop a creative competent person at school, but school final examination requires only the knowledge of a sum of discreet facts.
The procedure of the National Standardized Test is not a dogma; it is being developed and improved. This year they are speaking of adding more subjects to the test so that to ensure a wider choice of specialties; it is said the exact subjects (both compulsory and optional) will be published only two months before the Test date. However, these changes do not seem to introduce a happy change; they will definitely add to the stress of both students and teachers, and probably transform all subjects into a test-training nightmare. Anyway, hope dies last and we still believe there eventually will be found acceptable solutions.
As I have worked in a higher educational institution for about 24 years, I am very much concerned with the changes in the system of higher education that are being introduced by the reform and the perspectives that they promise.
Higher education modernization became one of the most important conditions of the State system development and consolidation of the country's independence in the spheres of economics and politics of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In order to build the legislative basis for the higher education modernization, the systems of education managing and financing were reformed. Training of specialists is carried out in accordance with Specialties Classificatory for higher and post graduate education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in harmony with International Standard Education Classification and the main statements of the Bologna Declaration.
The main priorities of the long-term state policy in the sphere of education so and the most important objectives of educational system are formulated in a ^ number of strategic documents of the * Republic of Kazakhstan, such as: the State s Program for Education Development in
2005-2010, the State Program for Technical and Professional Education Development in 2008-2012, the Program "Children of Kazakhstan" for 2007-2011, The Program for ensuring pre-school education "Balapan" for 2010-2014. An important contribution to the development of the human capital of the country has become The President Scholarship "Bolashak" for talented young Kazakhstani citizens to be educated in the best Universities of the world [1, 8].
The role of higher education considerably grew in forming sophisticated economy, in the period of transfer of the country's economy onto the innovation and intensive development stage.
With the active participation of the state an overall modernization of higher education is carried out on the basis of the necessary resources and their effective usage mechanisms.
At present 144 higher educational institutions function in the Republic (among them are 9 national, 1 international, 32 state, 13 non-civil, 89 private higher educational institutions, including 14 joint-stock ones). The total students' contingent of higher educational institutions constitutes 633814 people. 128491 students or 20 % study on the basis of state order, i.e. have state scholarships. Ratio of students to every 10 thousand of population constitutes 423 people [2]. We have implemented the best recognized and most widely spread in the world model of specialists' training through three-level structure: Bachelor - Master -PhD. Now methodic and systematic work to improve the content of educational programs is carried out for each of the three levels.
The credit technology of education has been introduced to ensure the international recognition of the national education programs, to provide students and faculty with academic mobility opportunities, as well as to improve the quality of education. All higher educational institutions should carry out their educational process in accord with the credit system since September 1, 2008.
This is what is officially stated and published in mass media; this is, however,
just one side of the coin. The other side seems to stay mostly in shadow and thus is far less shiny, but I believe open talk of the existing problems is an essential part of their solution.
Though the credit system has really been introduced to Kazakhstani higher educational institutions, in reality it is a home-made variety of the credit system, inheriting a good deal of what had existed in higher education in Soviet times and later. I believe it is positive, however, that we have preserved something good from our past achievements; it makes sense when people keep to their tradition. On the other hand, the resulting system has produced a number of paradoxes that feed my article. Let's have a look at some rudiments of the Soviet higher educational system in the modern one.
First of all, on entering a higher educational institution students are grouped in accordance with the specialty they have chosen and continue to study in those groups during the whole period of their studies, i.e. for years for the Bachelor degree education. This is exactly as we used to study in the Soviet times.
Now as well students attend classes in compulsory subjects that are assigned by the time-table all together, which is quite logical. As for the elective subjects, they have to choose the subjects also all together, or how can we make a stable timetable for the whole group otherwise? So whether they want it or not, students become a kind of team as soon as they are assigned to a group. What kind of individual study trajectory can we actually speak about, if two students want to study Practical grammar, three prefer Practical Phonetics, and the remaining seven are keen on Home Reading? Under such circumstances the whole group will get Home Reading for the coming semester, according to the majority choice, even if in another group situation is similar. Yes, students have choice of subjects to study, but do they actually choose? This becomes a sharp point each spring when students have to choose elective courses for the coming academic year.
Another problem is hidden in discrepancy between teaching staff experience and the innovations that are being introduced. With credit system students are supposed to study a lot on their own. They should make research in the subjects they are studying; they have to work in the libraries a lot. Research implies some kind of freedom and creativity, but many university teachers who have been educated within the old system, do not trust students so far: they prescribe students what exactly books to read and even what exactly quotations to write out and do not tolerate any deviations from their own standard. One of my colleagues demands that all the assignment she gives to her students should be handed in handwriting: "Otherwise they might download something from the Internet instead of doing it themselves; how else can I control them?" This often results in overload of students that does not produce any positive result, but only exhaustion and boredom, and even forces some students to quit their studies.
The biggest paradox we face within our variety of the credit system is academic freedom, or I would say the myth of academic freedom. It might work for the Universities in the capital of the country; it seems unimaginable in a rural higher educational institution like the one I work for. There are no mechanisms ensuring mobility of students and faculty at present. I will explain what I mean. Let's take students first.
Student education in a higher educational institution in Kazakhstan is ruled by the academic plan adopted by the Academic Council of the institution and based on the typical plan for the given specialty, approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This seems a positive moment, since it serves the National Standard implementation.
Next, at least 30 percent (and in future 70 percent) of subjects are elective, they can be chosen by students from a variety of subjects within a certain specialty suggested by the faculty of a particular higher educational institution. This also
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seems positive and ideally should stimulate academic mobility of students.
In reality, however, their mobility is limited, if not killed by the regulation demanding each student's completion of the academic plan of the higher educational institution the student is graduating from. Now comes the paradox: if a student moves from one university to another even inside Kazakhstan, they can be enrolled only on condition the difference between their academic plan and the plan of this institution does not exceed five subjects. But the more elective courses the student has taken, the greater the difference! I even faced a ridiculous situation when one of my third-year students left the institute, but decided to return to her studies next year, and the academic plan difference was fifteen subjects. That caused her enrollment as a second-year student into the same institution for the same specialty! Because we develop our academic plans every year, following the improving regulations from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan!
So when students eventually decide to move from one higher educational institution to another, they predictably enough face the problem of academic plans difference, which often sends them a semester or a whole academic year back in their studies. This makes academic freedom a myth rather than a reality of today's Kazakhstani higher education system.
What about faculty? Can university teachers improve their teaching skills by trying a number of universities in a number of locations? Hardly. Before a new academic year begins, the teaching load is divided between the faculty, thus determining their salary. This year I am teaching six subjects; if I eventually move to another higher educational institution to experience a new work environment and to teach my subjects to other students - who is going to work for me here, in my home institution if the host
institution does not send anyone in exchange, or the person who comes specializes in a different group of subjects? And whose work load shall I take in the host institution? Of course, there always is a possibility of planning academic exchanges beforehand, but nowadays it is a hypothetical option.
As a conclusion I would like to accept the truth that a thorough modernization of higher education is being carried out in Kazakhstan under Education Reform with active participation of the state. The necessary recourses are being supplied, and mechanisms of their effective use are being developed.
According to the strategic goals during 2010-2020 the system of higher and post graduate education will adequately react to accelerating processes of globalization and universalization, due to modernization of technical base, increasing role of information technology and modernization of teaching methods according to world tendencies. We are going to overcome if not all, most of the paradoxes that puzzle us now: where there is a will, there is a way! References
1. The State Program for Education Development in 2011-2020 legalized 07.12.2010 by the President of Kazakhstan's order # 11182.
2. Zh.K. Tuimebajev, the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Condition of Higher Education in the Republic of Kazakhstan" Speech of July 8-9, 2009 UNESCO Headquarters, Paris (France).
3. Zh.Tuimebaev, the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Introductory word of at the International Forum for the development of higher education "Kazakhstan and the Bologna Process: Reforming the System of Higher and Post-Graduate Education" October 20 2008, Almaty, Kazak National University named after Al Farabi.
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