Introduction of the New Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment in Primary Schools (Grade 1) in Kazakhstan

Author(s):

Liz Winter(presenting / submitting)Colleen McLaughlin(presenting)Kairat Kurakbayev Assel Kambatyrova Aizhan Ramazanova Daniel Torrano

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

03. Curriculum Innovation

Format:

Paper

Session Information

03 SES 07 B, Curriculum & Inquiry Learning

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

17:15-18:45

Room:

K3.06

Chair:

David Leat

Contribution

Kazakhstan is currently undergoing major educational reform in seeking to adopt a more international model of education. One of the keys areas identified for modernisation has been the school curriculum whereby the enhancement of primary and secondary curriculum has been extensively discussed in most strategic policy documents and analytical reports (OECD, 2014; NUGSE, 2014; World Bank, 2014). The move towards drastic changes in the school curriculum has been part of the official rhetoric of the state in regards of international competition and gearing Kazakhstan’s secondary education system towards a European model of 12-year schooling. National aims are to be met through the implementation of a new, more integrated curriculum in secondary schools that is based on an adaption of that previously trialled in elite schools in Kazakhstan. The new national curriculum strives to develop students’ functional literacy, their critical and higher-order thinking and to take a more student-centred approach to individualised learning. When discussing these new concepts in the post-Soviet Kazakhstan’s education system, most policy makers and educationalists would often refer to Western paradigm of education as put in comparison to the post-Soviet system of schooling.

Alongside this, updated models of assessment practices include a curriculum-derived criteria-based assessment approach to appraise the achievement of each and every student’s set learning objectives. These changes to the curriculum will operate in conjunction with new textbooks and professional development courses to support the reform.

As preparation to the new curriculum and associated change in practices becoming nationwide for Grade 1 as of September 2016, this research follows its roll-out in 30 state pilot schools. The research examines Grade 1 teachers’ experiences to cover the period from September 2016 to May 2016 and hence, reports in-vivo experiences of teachers as they grapple with an entirely new curriculum and a revised paradigm of teaching and learning. This paper will describe the realities and issues of reform in action. It is relevant to the audience here in showing how a post-Soviet country reacts to European and more global expectations of school curricula content and delivery.

In summary, the study reported here examines the attitudes and perspectives of schoolteachers, school principals and other stakeholders towards the implementation of novel features of the primary education curriculum and new principles and practices of assessment at mainstream schools in Kazakhstan. It aims to not only disseminate to an audience how curriculum reform acts out in real time but also to present useful evidence to inform policy in a timely fashion as the reform process moves forwards.

The prism of analysis used as a theoretical framing of this study with regards to curriculum reform is based on the two concepts of ‘curriculum control’ and ‘curriculum coherence’ used by Oates (2010) in his transnational analysis of the development of and management of curriculum development.

The overriding theoretical framework applied to examine teachers’ attitudes towards the newly introduced assessment practices and purposes is based on that offered by Black (1998). Teachers’ constructs as to their own purposes of assessment were settled along the three primary axes of: assessment for learning; certification and transfer; and accountability through reporting. Additionally, the inadequacies of the traditional and previous classroom assessment techniques in Kazakhstan (Winter et al, 2014, World Bank, 2012) are taken into account in order to see how the new far more explicit link between curriculum and assessment practices operates and whether acculturalisation to this new regime has occurred or not.

Method

For the sake of triangulation of data, this study is based on a mixed methods research design. Effectively, the study administered a convergent parallel mixed methods design in order “to simultaneously collect both quantitative and qualitative data, merge the data, and use the results to understand a research problem” (Creswell, 2014, 570). To present the general picture and to look at group differences and contrasts, survey data were obtained in May 2016 from 253 teachers of those directly involved in piloting the new curriculum across all 30 pilot schools. These data were set against 171 teachers not directly involved in piloting the new curriculum from a sub-set of six schools from the overall 30. The survey comprised a mix of bespoke closed questions that provided material for inferential statistical analyses and open questions that were subsequently coded and used for content analyses. The survey comprised 67 questions in five sections that covered: aims, goals and objectives of the new curriculum; content and subject matter of the new curriculum; attitudes towards assessment and evaluation; approaches to teaching and learning; experiences with the new curriculum. The assessment section contained an assessment for learning scale (James and Pedder, 2006) in order to examine teachers’ attitudes to formative assessment and, simultaneously, to measure the use of reflective practices based on a supposedly more informed approach to their students’ acquisition of the curriculum and set learning objectives. Results from the survey were necessarily informed by and contextualised against more detailed interview and focus group data. These data had been collected through site visits in late April 2016 to six of the 30 pilot schools. The six schools were in there different regions of Kazakhstan and included a rural and an urban school in each location. The end qualitative dataset contained 14 one-to-one interviews with principals, vice-principals, first-grade teachers and others plus seven focus groups involving a total of 35 participants. Analysis of the qualitative data was conducted using open thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) within super-ordinate categories in line with the various sections of the survey around the imposed topics of: curriculum aims; curriculum content; assessment; attitudes to teaching and learning; available resources.

Expected Outcomes

The first key finding is that an overwhelming majority of teachers believe that the new curriculum in Kazakhstan facilitates the formation of students’ skills and competences. For example, many teachers mentioned that by students studying the new subject ‘Natural Science’ through research exercises; students’ ability and skills to independently discover, conceptualise, understand, synthesise and conclude increased dramatically. Indeed, most teachers acknowledged that they should not rely on their habit of using rote learning and didactic approaches when piloting the new curriculum and instead should try to provide more active student engagement by action-based learning. Hence delivery of the new curriculum has prompted new pedagogies and a significant shift in teachers’ and students’ roles in the classroom. Such a finding reflects the overall view that the stated goals of the new primary curriculum are being achieved through development of a more learner-centred approach, critical thinking, creativity and functional literacy. Furthermore, coherence and close-coupling between the aims of the curriculum and required assessment practices has been a powerful driver of change and invoked a paradigm shift in constructs of teaching and learning. The introduction of cross-curricular themes in the curriculum has prompted supportive collaboration within and between schools to initiate cross-disciplinary discourse, perhaps for the first time. The newfound autonomy of teachers and schools has also driven important aspects of the reform; e.g. schools engaging with their communities and parents to explain unfamiliar procedures and teachers taking the initiative to create their own resources. However, tensions of curriculum reform also appeared; such as teachers’ simultaneous need for experimentation with the new curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices whilst being held overly accountable by policy makers. Further tensions included the provision of resources; top-down prescription; and the pace of change including the demands of scaling up experiences to all schools throughout Kazakhstan.

References

Black, P. (1998) Testing: Friend or Foe? Theory and Practice of Assessment and Testing, London, Falmer Press. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research In Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. James, M. and Pedder, D. (2006) ‘Beyond method: assessment and learning practices and values’, Curriculum Journal, vol.17, no. 2, pp. 109-138. Oates, T. 2010, Could do better: Using international comparisons to refine the National Curriculum in England. Cambridge: Cambridge Assessment. Available at http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/images/112281-could-do-better-using-international-comparisons-to-refine-the-national-curriculum-in-england.pdf OECD (2014). FAQ: Background and Basics. Retrieved 8th November 2016 from https://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/pisafaq.htm NUGSE (Nazarbayev University Graduate Schools of Education) (2014). The Development of Strategic Directions for Education Reforms in Kazakhstan for 2015-2020, Diagnostic Report. Astana, Kazakhstan: Indigo Print. Winter, L., Rimini, C., Soltanbekova, A. & Tynybayeva, M. (2014). Assessment in Kazakhstan: The Unified National Test, Past and Present. In D. Bridges (Ed.), Educational reform and internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan. The Cambridge Education Research series (pp. 106 - 133). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Bank (2012). Systems Approach for Better Education Results Country Report. Kazakhstan. Student Assessment. Available at http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/08/12/000356161_20130812163634/Rendered/PDF/799380WP0SABER0Box0379795B00PUBLIC0.pdf World Bank (2014). Strengthening Kazakhstan’s Education System. An Analysis of PISA 2009 and 2012. Available at http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2014/12/03/000470435_20141203104214/Rendered/PDF/929130WP0Box380h0Online0FINAL0Dec01.pdf

Author Information

Liz Winter (presenting / submitting)

University of Cambridge

Faculty of Education

Northampton

Colleen McLaughlin (presenting)

University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Kairat Kurakbayev

Nazarbayev University

Graduate School of Education

Astana

Assel Kambatyrova

Nazarbaeyv University Graduate School of Education

Astana

Aizhan Ramazanova

Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Kazakhstan

Daniel Torrano

Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

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