Over 130,000 Kazakhstani teachers upgraded qualification over 5 years

"If previously we focused on the content of education and assessment of a teacher's work, this year we decided to shift our focus to dissemination of experience that we had accumulated over the years. The updated content of education was introduced at Grade 1 this year. It is crucial to know how teachers perceived it," Ms Shamshidinova noted speaking on the margins of the research-to-practice conference Taking Change to Scale in Education: Piloting and Dissemination in Astana.

"This is the 8th conference we have organized. Over 3,500 teachers and educational experts participated in the previous conferences. The goal of our international conferences is to familiarize teachers with advanced ideas in this sphere," Shamshidinova explained.

The conference brought together over 700 participants, including 70 international experts from the University of Cambridge, Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and the OECD.

"We do realize that the standards and curricula are developed mostly by a certain group of people - methodologists, scientists, professional teachers. But it is the teachers who introduce them at schools. It is very important that teachers understand these standards and curricula," she stressed.

In her words, the project on transition to updated content of education since 2016 is of particular interest for Kazakhstan.

It should be noted that Kazakhstan plans to switch to 12-year education only by 2020.