The government of Kazakhstan undertakes set of systemic measures to create favourable conditions for teachers’ development and stimulate their professional growth. However, centralization of the system brings up an important question about the effectiveness of these measures. Revising the teacher professional development system is particularly important in the context of updating secondary educational standards and curriculum, the development of such areas as critical and creative thinking, functional literacy, inclusive education, distance learning. 

One of the important steps in the process of modernization of the teacher development system in Kazakhstan is the idea of introducing vouchers for  teacher training programs. The international studies show that using voucher mechanism can reduce the dominance of state educational institutions, increase competition among providers, and thus contribute to improve their productivity and efficiency. On the other hand, this model has some risks. For example, the Kazakhstan Association of Continuing Education pointed out a significant corruption risk of introducing vouchers into the preschool education system, such as a deal between parents and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

The transition to a new teacher professional development system requires a thorough analysis of both the opportunities and potential risks.

This research will first examine if ongoing teacher professional development policies are effective in terms of developing student functional literacy by means of PISA-2018 data and then analyze the opportunities and risks of the new model based on the teachers survey data.

The study addresses the following research questions:

How is the teachers’ participation in a programme of professional development related to student academic performance?

How are vouchers perceived by school teachers/providers?

What kind of opportunities will the transition to vouchers for teacher professional development provide for teachers/providers?

What kind of risks might teachers/providers of professional development programs face after implementing the voucher mechanism?

What should be done to avoid these risks?

The quantitative research method will be employed to find out teachers’ attitude to vouchers by using statistical analysis (descriptive statistics, ANOVA tests, etc.). The practice shows that the discussion of strategic educational reforms requires the involvement of the pedagogical community. Schools will be proportionally selected from five regions of Kazakhstan based on their location (urban/rural) and the language of instruction (Kazakh, Russian and mixed). The interview will then be conducted among the representatives of teacher professional development organizations as one of the key players of this reform.

This study will serve as a way to revisit teacher development system in Kazakhstan and develop an effective mechanism for implementing the new model. The results of this study will help to identify possible challenges and perspectives of vouchers in teacher professional development system.

S. Lhagve, Final Report on “Internal Market in Education”: Think Tank Facility Project MON/07/131 (Ulaanbaatar: Ministry of Finance of Mongolia and UN Development Program (UNDP) Field Offifice in Mongolia, 1997), 3. Sun Yang-yang. Teacher-Training Vouchers: Institutional Innovation of Teacher Professional Development. Jiangsu Education Research, 2010, 28-31. Steiner‐Khamsi G. Vouchers for Teacher Education (Non)Reform in Mongolia: Transitional, Postsocialist, or Antisocialist Explanations? Comparative Education Review , 49(2), 2005, 148-172.