According to OECD experts, Kazakhstan should renew 1/3 of its teaching force in the next 10 years. But to what extend the education system can support (and retain) current and future novice teachers during their first years of work at school? First years of work for young teachers are the most critical - during this period they adapt to the realities of the school, learn to put their knowledge into practice and are convinced of the correctness or regret the choice of their profession.

Unfortunately, the latest results of the TALIS 2018 international study showed that in Kazakhstan, novice teachers, compared to more experienced ones, are less satisfied with their work, more critically assess the status of their profession, are more likely to experience stress and are inclined to change their place of work (school). For example, 66% of teachers in Kazakhstan under the age of 30 do not plan to continue their careers as teachers in schools for various reasons. Moreover, among Kazakhstani teachers (20%) there were more young teachers who were disappointed for choosing this profession than in OECD countries (8%). Obviously, this situation depicts the poor condition of novice teachers.

With the adoption of the new Law “On Teacher Status” in 2019, greater emphasis was put to teacher professionalism and their working conditions. In this regard many reforms are planned to be implemented until 2025. In the scope of the new Law, a mentor is assigned to a novice teacher for the period of one academic year, an individual Work Plan is developed. The mentor is paid an additional bonus.

The paper aims to explore the current state of the induction and support programs for novice teachers (the challenges faced by novice teachers and their mentors) and to determine the areas of its improvement.

Research questions:

The proposed study will seek to answer following questions:

1. How are novice teachers supported in Kazakhstan's schools?

2. What challenges do novice teachers and their mentors face?

3. How can the novice teacher induction and support programs be improved?

The study uses both quantitative and qualitative data by further analyzing OECD’s TALIS-2018 national database that contains representative data throughout Kazakhstan, whereas qualitative data was collected through interviews with novice teachers and their mentors. Interview participants work in urban and rural secondary schools. The work experience of teachers varies from 0 to 7 years of work. The interview data was collected from June to September 2020.

Major findings: • In practice the activities mentioned in the Work plan are rather formal. Activities that require more resources and time investments (coaching, participation in Lesson Study, team teaching with a more experienced teacher) are less like to be realized. According to the responses of young teachers, these events are very rare or completely absent. Most often, young teachers receive such assistance as advice on filling out documents, advice on working with children, or they observe the lessons of more experienced colleagues. • Despite the fact that every young teacher must be assigned a mentor, not all young teachers indicated that they have one. • The weak culture of cooperation between teachers hinders teacher induction. Novice teachers note the reluctance of colleagues to share their knowledge and skills. • The issue of providing with effective mentoring is exacerbated due to the poor preparedness of future teachers and low motivation. The interviewed mentors note the weak content preparation of some novice teachers. These findings suggest that mentoring programs should also serve as a boost of teacher qualification to young educators. • In some schools, the first year of teaching could be made more challenging. Few interviewed teachers noted that the most "difficult" classes i.e. with poorest performance and worst discipline was given to them as these classes were not in demand among more experienced and respected teachers. • Excessive workload of the mentor and mentee can negatively affect the implementation of the Mentoring Plan. The workload of Kazakhstani teachers is one of the heaviest in the world (OECD, 2019). The interviewed mentors cited the lack of time as the main problem in mentoring. It was also revealed that the mentor and the mentee have conflicting working schedule. This makes it difficult to meet regularly.

Ayubayeba, N. (2018). Teacher collaboration for professional learning: Case studies of three schools in Kazakhstan. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. University of Cambridge. Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On teacher status" (2019). OECD (2019), A Flying Start: Improving Initial Teacher Preparation Systems, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/cf74e549-en OECD (2019), TALIS 2018 Results (Volume I): Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners, TALIS, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1d0bc92a-en.