Education in Kazakhstan--Growing Pains

Today our group was fortunate enough to meet some local educators and education experts who taught us a lot about the education system here.  It is evident that many people here value education as a way to improve their own futures and their nation as a whole.  It sounds like they had a difficult transition from the Soviet system of education to their own system in an independent Kazakhstan, which began in 1991.  But they have come a long way. 

After hearing a lot today from the professionals, I am eager to go to visit two schools tomorrow.  In the morning we will go to a Kazakh-language school, and in the afternoon a Russian-language school.  When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Kazakhstan gained its independence, all schools were taught strictly in Russian.  Kazakh children (but not Russians, who made up about half of the population then) were allowed to have only a very small amount of Kazakh language and grammar instruction, but all subjects were taught in only Russian.  When Kazakhstan became independent, they wanted to begin teaching (at least some) in Kazakh, but they faced many problems:

• There were no Kazakh textbooks or other materials.
• Teachers had not been trained in Kazakh, so few people were able to teach math, science, history, etc. in Kazakh.
• In addition, schools buildings were often in bad shape and needed lots of repairs.

Kazakhstan is currently in the midst of a program they call Reform 2011-2020 (this was created by the nation's Ministry of Education).  By 2020, they want to achieve the following things:

• have 12 years of public school (It was 10 in 1991 and is 11 now.)
• build over 500 new schools (There are ~7400 now, so that is around a 7% increase.)
• increase the number of 3-language schools from 33 too 700 (These teach math, science, history, literature, and other content in Russian, Kazakh, AND English.)
• have free textbooks for all students by 2015 (Right now students have to buy their textbooks each year.)
• 90% of all schools have e-learning opportunities (Today around 600 schools here have this.)

These are ambitious goals, but the country has significantly increased its funding of public schools over the past few years and appears to be making a strong attempt to achieve them.