Looking at Kazakhstan’s Higher Education Landscape: From Transition to Transformation Between 1920 and 2015

Abstract

In the past 25 years, Kazakhstan has undergone a period of rapid education reform. As it began transitioning from a Soviet Republic to an independent nation-state, President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Kazakhstani government made it clear that the lynchpin to becoming a globally competitive market economy was education (Aitzhanova et al. 2014). Ideologically, this focus signified a watershed moment, as the philosophical underpinnings of Soviet higher education (HE) were uprooted, with the transition toward a market economy. However, this process of reforming Kazakhstan's HE system is situated amidst significant demographic, sociocultural and political shifts which have taken place in the last two decades.

Development Factors of the Lecturers’ Professional Mobility in System of Higher Education in Kazakhstan

“…Lack of adequate funding for education significantly hinders the implementation of a service that would inform on participation in foreign programs, differences in the structures of educational programs and courses, transfer of credits and assessments, harmonization of curricula between universities, etc. (Abdiraiymova et al, 2013;Ahn et al, 2018).…”

“…The list of indicators affecting pedagogical mobility is based on lecturer's characteristics that are necessary to ensure their professional mobility, and based on a generalization of relevant literature (Ahn et al, 2018;Belyakova, 2014;Biktuganov, Igoshev, 2013;Pavlenko, 2017; Teichler, 2017) (Appendix).…”

“…The absence of official statistics on the mobility of university lecturers indicates that this aspect of the national strategy of improving the quality of education in the country has not received due attention in practice. Most scientists, considering this issue, identified a number of destructive factors, such as the low level of funding (Abdiraiymova et al, 2013;Ahn et al, 2018) and the low level of English ability (Seitzhanova et al, 2015) (only 6.8 % of lecturers in Kazakhstan's higher education institutions can give lectures in English) (Analytical report…, 2018). Yet it should be noted that professional mobility is being formed and developed under the influence of objective and subjective factors (Gabdulina, Zhuman, 2019;Shegda, 2016;Bense, 2016).…”

Ethical and Methodological Challenges of Educational Research in Central Asia

“…После распада Советского Союза в 1991 году научно-исследовательский потенциал постсоветских республик значительно ухудшился изза тяжелого финансового кризиса, который пагубно отразился на научно-исследовательских институтах (Ahn, Dixon, & Chekmareva, 2018;Karakhanyan, 2018;Smolentseva, 2003) [8-10]. Снижение финансирования привело к потере научно-исследовательских кадров.…”

Effects of the Bologna Process on Quality Assurance Regimes in the Post-Soviet Space: Isomorphism and Path Dependencies in Moldova, Russia, and Kazakhstan

“…A new legal framework was formulated in the laws "On Education'' in 1992 and "On Higher Education" in 1993 which regulated the overall operations of HEIs (Brunner and Tillett 2007). These laws, along with other regulations and standards re-created the high degree of centralized curricular design and control that had existed under the Soviet regime and which HEIs were used to (Ahn et al 2017). Accompanying state curricular standards, the government launched a ministry-controlled QA procedure which obliged all HEIs to receive a license to operate and undergo periodical attestation by the State.…”