This chapter offers insights into the policy and practice of science education in English in Kazakhstan. Science education is currently seen as synonymous with education in English through the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach, but this position has evolved over time as the policy has expanded across schools. Previous studies in Kazakhstan have found that teachers hold positive attitudes towards teaching science in English but experience practical challenges in teaching methods and linguistic resources. To better understand these challenges, a case study of science teachers was conducted jointly by the University of Cambridge and the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (NUGSE) in 2019. Observations were conducted and evaluated using a modified Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP). The data indicate a dearth of innovation and transformation of STEM education, and of application of CLIL pedagogies. Overall, these findings seem to point to the need for sustained professional development that lasts over an extended time so that teachers can understand how to implement STEM education reform efforts and CLIL pedagogy.

Chapter 7 provides a rationale and description of the main transformation processes in the content and standards for assessment of student learning achievements in Kazakhstan introduced within the Renewed Content of Education. Revision of assessment is a complex process that requires consistency with the socio-cultural context and well-structured communication to achieve its credibility. The presented assessment framework was intended to develop the internal structure and content of assessment based on criteria that could be reflected in improving learning outcomes, reducing disparity and building a sustainable culture of interaction based on transparent assessment mechanisms. As with any system, the assessment system depended on the integrity of its consideration and the interrelatedness of teachers’ actions in each classroom. Despite facing a problem of implementation complexity in the initial stages, the teaching community coped with the rethinking of the traditional approach and showed a willingness to develop its own methodological potential in assessment, which made it possible to expand the understanding and involvement of students, parents, politicians and society.

This chapter is an introduction to the research and writing undertaken by those who have researched the reshaping of the education system. It begins by giving a recent history of the country and particularly the disruptive events of 2022. The argument is that Kazakhstan is at a pivotal moment in its culture and development as an independent, post-Soviet state. The introduction also outlines the key aspects of the education system, previous research by this team plus the major themes and structure of the book.

Chapter 12 is a brief chapter that sets out the research aims, design and processes of several collaborative research projects conducted by a large team of researchers from the University of Cambridge and Nazarbayev University. It covers the three-year period from 2018 to 2020 to describe the rationales and methods used for data collection alongside the philosophies of reporting applied in forming three regional case studies. It ends by signalling how the case studies and earlier research findings from 2018 combine to allow for contrasts between regions and layers in the educational system that inform on the variations and commonalities found pursuant to systemic educational reform.

This chapter describes two major action research projects undertaken with teachers in Kazakhstan. The aim was to promote teachers’ engagement in curriculum reform and teacher professional development through action research in schools. The two settings were very different and both researched using multiple sources of evidence to explore what we have learned about the conditions for and blocks and facilitators to action research in Kazakhstani schools. A key learning was that the political task of providing the enabling conditions is a top priority if action research is to fulfil its huge potential, and this will determine whether it becomes embedded or not.

This study was conducted in one region in northern Kazakhstan. It involved visits to one urban and two rural schools and regional and district educational authorities. The chapter describes a case study of stakeholders’ perceptions of the implementation of the Renewed Content of Education (RCE). The key questions guiding the inquiry were as follows. (1) How are the aims of the new curriculum understood and being delivered? (2) How have views of the RCE changed over time? (3) Have teaching practices changed? (4) How has the availability of school resources impacted reform implementation? The findings demonstrate that discourses articulated by stakeholders were those of adjustment and attempts to make the reform work in the challenging circumstances of increased rural–urban migration that has left some rural schools more disadvantaged. While the intent of the RCE was to provide a modern, student-centred programme aimed at building the skills needed for twenty-first-century learners, there was not necessarily enough thought of the impact on rural and remote schools. School communities are now slowly adjusting to better understanding the long-term benefits of this initiative.

Schools had started piloting the Renewed Content of Education with Grade 1 in September 2015, then moved on to Grade 2 in 2016 and to Grade 3 in September 2017. The pilot schools acted as test sites one year ahead of the full roll-out to all mainstream schools in Kazakhstan. The research evidence collected over the two-year period comprises a mixed sample of primary grade (Grades 1–4) teachers, comparing those starting their second or third year of teaching the new content with those who were yet to have direct experience of it. Interviews and/or focus groups with teachers, school principals and vice-principals were conducted in each of six schools. In addition, primary grade teachers were invited to respond to surveys. The areas of inquiry included overall opinions as well as more targeted attitudes towards the revised content of the curriculum, changes to teaching and learning, new approaches to assessment and the support afforded to implement the new curriculum. The chapter will show that piloting had been a very worthwhile step in the implementation of a new curriculum, with a growing confidence and appreciation of what this curriculum aimed to achieve.

The aim of Chapter 16, written by researchers from the University of Cambridge and Nazarbayev University, is to ask: how coherent was implementation of the Renewed Content of Education? It bridges the gap between piloting and national implementation to report and analyse the experiences found in both pilot and non-pilot schools as reform took place at two longitudinal points: two and three years after implementation. Additionally, it reports on the third-year implementation experiences found in the district and regional layers of administration that sit above schools. In essence, it considers coherence across the entire school system as framed by the experiences of, and communications and interactions between, schools, districts and regional stakeholders.

For a decade, the Faculty of Education of the University of Cambridge worked with colleagues in the newly established Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (NUGSE) in a programme designed to build research capacity. Though this involved some research training in the early stages, it functioned mainly by bringing research teams from the two institutions together into a research collaboration focused on the progress of educational reform in Kazakhstan. This chapter considers some of the issues raised by a somewhat asymmetrical international collaboration, the ‘translation’ of ‘international’ practice into this new environment and the development of what might be understood as a ‘research culture’. It considers the impact of the structural hierarchies built into the foundation of Nazarbayev University and, in particular, our research collaboration, with some reference to knowledge hierarchies (academic research, teachers’ professional knowledge as reflected in action research and lesson studies), the problematic nature of the discourse of the ‘international’ and ‘world class’ in educational research and the charge of neocolonialism levelled against the whole enterprise.