Pedagogy

In education, reform and renewal are constant. Policies are continually changing to meet the needs of the times and the society. Political advisors, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, play an important role among private consultants as policy actors. According to Gunter's (in: Howlett and Mukerjee (eds), Handbook of policy formulation, Edward Elgar Publishers, 2017) classification of policy actors, the OECD can be classified as a supra-national organization. This paper examines the impact of OECD research on the education system of Kazakhstan. Based on the literature, the authors address two key issues-what role the OECD is performing in education policy reforms in Kazakhstan and whether this facilitates or undermines the provision of public education. The authors focus on the influence of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as a global phenomenon, how Kazakhstan has embraced this international test, and how, even though PISA has made little or no difference to student outcomes, it is still credited for educational achievements.

The constant challenge of managing uncertainty makes the professional development of school principals increasingly important. School improvement is unlikely to happen without qualified school leaders who continuously work on their professional development. This article explores professional development of school principals in Kazakhstan. Data were collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with thirty school principals from public and private schools. The outcome of the study indicates that professional preparation for school principals is crucial. School leaders do not have any induction courses prior to their service and often absorb everything as they get immersed by working out what needs to be done in process. Furthermore, current professional development programs do not meet the needs of school principals. The conclusion includes recommendations to improve professional development opportunities for school principals in Kazakhstan and a wider community.

The research reported in this article explored the implementation of Trilingual Education Policy in Kazakhstan. The authors explain the challenges stakeholders came across while taking on the reforms in the language-in-education policy. In this context, the scholars describe four main challenges, such as the simultaneous implementation of several reforms, teachers training, a lack of an English environment, and different language origins. The topic is important, as the issue has been raised for almost two decades. Despite the two decades of meticulous deliberation and piloting of the system, it has not been fully implemented yet. During the research, a systematic literature review method was adopted. The authors used Google Scholar, ERIC, Web of Science, and Scopus databases as well as the official websites of the Government of Kazakhstan and Media resources. This review was conducted using Russian, English, and Kazakh databases.