This paper reports on the first-year outcome of a three year-long initiative called Teacher Leadership in Kazakhstan (TLK). The TLK project was established with the purpose to develop non-positional teacher leadership (NPTL) in mainstream schools in Kazakhstan. In Year 1, the TLK project involved 16 principals, 32 school-based facilitators, and 150 teachers from four regions of Kazakhstan. Facilitating teacher-led initiatives is seen as an important element of educational improvement in schools in Kazakhstan, where hierarchical cultures and structures still prevail. The Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) develop educational policies and local educational authorities control their implementation in schools. In such a system of top-down communication, there is a limited space for school autonomy and innovation (Frost, Fimyar, Yakavets, & Bilyalov, 2014). However, the government’s ambitious move to join the 30 most developed countries by 2050 has increased the need to consider different approaches to school governance and teacher education in Kazakhstan (OECD, 2014). Since 2011 more than 100,000 teachers and school administrators have undergone associated in-services training programmes (Wilson, 2017). In 2020, the government introduced the ‘Law on Teachers’ Status’ to increase teachers’ roles in the society, as teaching has been generally considered as an underprivileged profession (Law on Teachers’ Status, 2020; Kopeyeva, 2019). We now explain the concept of NPTL, the TLK program implementation, evaluation, and our key research findings.

            Central to this study is the conceptualisation of teacher leadership through a non-positional perspective (NPTL). In contrast to positional teacher leadership, the NPTL approach views leadership as an entitlement of all practitioners regardless of their roles or positions to become active participants of educational improvement at classroom, school, and system level (Bangs & Frost, 2016). Central to NPTL is the idea that teachers can take strategic actions, initiate, and lead change regardless of their positions or roles, when the right conditions are created (MacBeath & Dempster, 2008; Bangs & Frost, 2016). Therefore, the focal point of the NPTL is developing capability and building capacity to enable teachers to exercise leadership. First, NPTL does not simply happen to an individual teacher, rather it is nurtured and facilitated through ongoing professional learning, collaboration, and networking (Frost, 2018). Second, mobilising teacher leadership is contingent on school principals’ attitudes, school structures and cultures, as teacher leadership cannot occur unless the school leadership teams provide structural and cultural support as well as create the conditions for networking (Fairman & Mackenzie, 2012).

The program: Teacher Leadership in Kazakhstan (TLK) initiative

The TLK initiative is based on the internationally recognized Teacher-led development work (TLDW) strategy, which focuses on enabling teachers to lead individual development projects throughout one academic school year (Frost, 2011). The program’s development, facilitation, and evaluation were coordinated by several international and local organizations, including HertsCam Network (UK), the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, Community Educational Foundation “School for All”, and Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (Kazakhstan). Throughout one academic year, teachers attended six group sessions that took place within the school premises; three one-to-one meetings with facilitators; two school network events; and, one international teacher leadership conference, which enabled them to discuss their projects, make contacts, and share knowledge with colleagues in other schools. As such, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the TLK initiative. We identified the following key research questions to gauge and understand its utility (Birckmayer & Weiss, 2000): What effect does the TLK experience and extent of collaborative school culture have on teacher leadership capacity and teachers’ development projects impact? How does the direct feedback from principals, facilitators, and inform a general understanding of the TLK program experience and processes?

Using a mixed-method approach with an embedded design (Creswell et al., 2003), research for the initiative was conducted over one academic year. Data involved questionnaire surveys, interviews, focus groups, and document analysis. All data collection involved prior ethical approval. A total of 98 teacher-participants agreed to complete the online survey, which was conducted to elicit teachers’ experience of the TLK program. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was adopted as a general technique in this study to assess the validity of substantive theory in the field of teacher leadership, professional learning, and the implementation of school initiatives. Statistical analysis was undertaken with the assistance the open-source R programming language (R Core Team, 2019). Four key scales were developed to capture the participants’ experience: Degree of Collaborative School Culture, Utility of TLK for Project Leadership, Teacher Leadership Capacity, and Impact of Project. A measurement model suggested construct validity while the structural model (Figure 1) suggested good fit to the data (Table 1). Positive TLK Experience ----------- .51*** -------- Teacher Leadership Capacity ^ - > ^ - - - - - - - - - .17ns - .51*** - - .46*** - - .23ns - v - > v Collaborative School Culture ----------- .56*** --------- Perceived Impact of Project Figure 1. Teacher Leadership in Kazakhstan Schematic Model Note. Item descriptions slightly abbreviated; *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. Table 1 Model Fit Indices for Measurement and Structural Model Model Fit Indices Model N χ^2 df χ^2/df p CFI TLI RMSEA g ̂ SEM 98 167.447 113 1.48 .22 .94 .92 .07 (L=.05, U=.10) .94 Note. See paper for abbreviations. Results suggested that perceived Positive TLK Experience only effected Teachers’ Leadership Capacity (β = .51, p < .001); and, Collaborative School Culture only effected the Perceived Impact of Project (β = .56, p < .001). These findings were further extended through qualitative data analysis. A total of 49 participants agreed to join interviews and focus groups: four school principals, 32 facilitators, and 13 teachers with representation from all the four regions. Each interview and focus group lasted around 30 to 40 minutes each. The program also generated a considerable number of documents, including the participants’ reflective stories and portfolios. Thematic coding was used to construct data around the key quantitative themes and to elicit emergent ideas (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

Our study reports the following three key findings: (1) systematic approaches are important to building teacher leadership capacity in schools; (2) teachers from more collaborative school cultures enjoy more impactful initiatives; (3) the intra- and inter-school collaboration can have positive effect on building teachers’ leadership capacity (Qanay, Courtney & Nam, 2021). First, teacher’ positive experience with the utility of the program for facilitating development projects, appeared to drive outcomes in self-reported teacher leadership capacity. The participants’ responses indicate that the program provided an alternative organizational culture where teachers could “build their own algorithm” and “reveal themselves”. However, teachers’ historical beliefs about learning seems to be a challenge for them to fully engage with the constructivist approach to learning (Yakavets et al., 2017). Second, the study outcomes indicate the importance of collaborative school cultures, wherein it may have been more natural for teachers more familiar with such culture to engage in aspects of the program. The key obstacles included the teachers’ workload, and the availability of time for teachers to engage in such programs. This may suggest the importance of revisiting the existing ‘stavka’ system, which is widely exercised in the post-Soviet countries, as it stifles teachers’ reflection and learning in schools (Steiner-Khamsi, 2016). Third, our findings suggest that creating conditions for teachers’ intra-school collaboration can be an important element of teacher leadership development. Specifically, school leadership teams’ involvement in the program, “emotional support” and “empathy” that they provide seem to enhance teachers’ capacity to lead educational improvement. Finally, teachers’ responses indicate that inter-school interaction can have an influence on teachers’ willingness and motivation to lead improvement. The sense of belonging and affirmation received from colleagues can be a powerful driver for teacher leadership development in schools in Kazakhstan (Gambrel & Cianci, 2003; Ayubayeva, 2018).

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