In light of Kazakhstan's aim to build its national identity and increase its global competitiveness, enabling teachers to actively participate in developing and implementing educational policies is pivotal to the success of the government’s initiatives (OECD, 2014a). This is because teachers can act as key mediators of social change (OECD, 2005). There is therefore a need to re-consider the system’s approach to educational reform. The current approach, with its focus on a centralized bureaucracy, has been criticized for being weakly coordinated and lacking communication with the periphery (Bridges et al., 2014, p. 276). As a result, there is little power or autonomy at the local school level where school directors still exist in the system whilst “all the important decisions are taken elsewhere” (Frost & Kambatyrova, 2019). In such conditions, there exists little space for local initiatives and creative practices leading to the teachers’ voicelessness and exclusion. In order to address this, It has been suggested that teachers in Kazakhstan should be provided the opportunity to lead initiatives and be supported in their endeavours (Yakavets et al., 2017a).

This calls for extending teachers’ leadership capacity through providing support for their ongoing professional learning and creating conditions for their agency and voice. This is particularly important as teachers in Kazakhstan have more recently been proactive in translating new policies into their classrooms, despite the bureaucracy, top-down reform, and the lack of communication with the center (Bridges et al., 2014). The critical question is how to mobilize teachers’ leadership capacity to facilitate educational reform in Kazakhstan.

Non-positional teacher leadership (NPTL)

Conceptualizing the notion of teacher leadership (TL) from the non-positional perspective led to the emergence of the Leadership for Learning (LfL) framework. The LfL framework considers leadership as a practice that can be exercised by every member of the school through ongoing learning, creating conditions for learning, engaging in dialogue, sharing leadership roles, and taking responsibility at the personal, school, and society level (MacBeath & Dempster, 2008). The LfL framework views TL as both an individual and a collective agency, which includes “influencing and serving others, taking the initiative and making decisions for the greater good, whilst modelling learning and being sensitive to context” (Swaffield & MacBeath, 2009, p. 38). This approach puts democratic values and moral purpose at the core of leadership. Leadership is perceived as a “right and responsibility rather than […] a gift or burden” and hence, can be exercised by all stakeholders including headteachers, teachers, students, and parents (p. 44). This definition allows leadership to be viewed as a practice that can be used as a tool for releasing teacher’s leadership potential (Dempster & MacBeath, 2009). This is particularly important in the context of Kazakhstan schools where the knowledge of leadership is often limited to the system of official roles and positions.

In contrast to the positional TL, the non-positional teacher leadership (NPTL) approach views leadership as an entitlement of all practitioners regardless of their roles or positions to become active participants of educational improvement at the classroom, school, and system level (Frost & Harris, 2003; Bangs & Frost, 2016). Central to NPTL is the idea that, when the right conditions are created, teachers can take strategic actions and initiate and lead change regardless of their positions or roles (MacBeath & Dempster, 2008; Durrant & Holden, 2006; Ramahi & Eltemamy, 2014; Bangs & Frost, 2016). Therefore, the focal point of the NPTL is the development and building of teacher capacity to exercise leadership. As such, it is not mere wishful thinking, but a strategy directed towards system-wide educational improvement.

The aim of this study was to explore NPTL development in schools in Kazakhstan and consisted of the following research question: What effect does teachers’ professional learning and collaboration have on NPTL capacity and teacher-led initiatives? How does the direct feedback from principals, facilitators, and teachers inform a general understanding of their NPTL experience? Research design and data collection methods The study employed the general embedded mixed-methods research design (Creswell et al., 2003) for the purpose of “obtaining different but complementary data on the same topic” (Morse, 1991, p. 122). For both studies, the second form of data, serving to address RQ2, augmented the primary quantitative data that served to inform RQ1. The main data collection methods included (1) a survey, (2) one-to-one interviews and focus groups, and (3) document analysis. A description of the participants, phases of the studies, research methods, and analysis will now be provided. Study 1 was officially launched in 2019 and involved 16 school principals, 32 facilitators, and 150 teachers from four regions in Kazakhstan. Thereafter, Study 2 was carried out in 2021 and involved 15 principals, 32 facilitators, and 174 participating teachers. The surveys were designed to measure the demographic characteristics of the participating teachers, the degree to which they were engaged in the programme, and the success of their projects. The quantitative component of both surveys included 41 questions for Study 1 and 45 Questions for Study 2. Informed from Study 1, Study 2 included additional questions pertaining to levels of teacher motivation, programme support, and early planning. Qualitative data were gleaned via semi-structured face-to-face interviews and focus groups. After the regional school network events—where all participants, facilitators, and school principals joined to share their experiences—multiple interviews and focus groups were administered. In Study 1, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the interviews in 2020 were conducted online, while for Study 2, all of the network events and interviews were conducted online. For Study 1, a total 49 participants contributed to interviews and focus groups including four principals, 32 facilitators, and 13 teachers with broad regional representation. For Study 2, a total 71 participants contributed to interviews and focus groups including five principals, 32 facilitators, and 34 teachers with broad regional representation.

In general, the outcomes of our two-year-long successive studies indicate that TLK programme can have a positive impact on teachers’ personal and professional development, whereby teachers notice an increase in self-confidence as well as strategic professional activity. Moreover, participants exposure to the programme’s key elements, such as flexibility to identify their own professional concerns and collaboration with colleagues, seem to lead to a gradual transformation of their perceptions about leadership. Teachers’ leadership initiatives had an impact on classroom and school practices, and some influenced practices at the national level. As such, there is a need for systemic strategies to support teachers’ agency and voice. This may, in turn, may have implications on restoring the status and authority of the profession as a part of the recently introduced Law on Teachers Status (2018) in Kazakhstan. Moreover, schools in support of such projects should ensure that all stakeholders, including teachers, support staff, and parents, and, insofar as possible, trust, support, and encourage teachers as change agents in schools.

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