Well-Being of Students in Kazakhstan: An Important Priority to Improve the Quality of Education

• In Event: Whole Child/Youth Development as an Imperative: Education Reform Challenges in Asia and the United States

Abstract

Background and Purposes
The initiatives of policy reforms in education have been priorities in the long agenda of changes in Kazakhstan. While the country has prioritized some specific areas in its education reform agenda, such as language instruction policy, inclusive education and teaching pedagogy, one of the key challenges that still faces stakeholders on a daily basis concerns the well-being of students. Well-being is particularly important in the context of Kazakhstan because of two main reasons: 1) the geo-political and socio-cultural aspect of the past and the present of the country; and 2) Underdevelopment of school environments. Kazakhstan is multiethnic and multicultural and has developed multicultural policies to various degrees. Today Kazakhstan has an overall 125 ethnic groups officially recognized; multi-ethnicity of the country continues to be challenged because Soviet cultural legacy remains powerfully present in many aspects of society such as within administrative practices and teaching pedagogies. Further, Kazakhstan has still been very challenged in terms of bringing the school buildings up to date; many school building are unfit for purpose as judged by health and hygiene as well as educational functionality.

The purpose of this project is threefold: 1) examine how schools around Kazakhstan define and contextualize the well-being of students throughout the academic year; 2) develop a large-scale measurement to assess psychological well-being; and 3) provide a sustainable approach for examining well-being of students in Kazakhstan irrespective of background.

Methods
The study was a mixed methods research design combining statistical analyses with qualitative inquiry. This project was organized in four phases. In the first phase a large-scale survey was piloted with a sample of a little over 2000 secondary school students; as well as qualitative inquiry into how well-being in schools is conceived and managed. In the second phase, the improved and more contextualized well-being scale survey was conducted among close to 3000 secondary school students. In the third phase, a second application of well-being scale to the same students was performed to assess how well-being changed over a school year. In the fourth phase, the final application of the well-being scale to assess its year-to-year validity was carried out with a sample of 1600 students from 22 different schools across Kazakhstan.

Preliminary Findings and Significance
The project is still underway. The main finding is that integrating disciplinary perspectives into educational research enhances cultural awareness and expands the level of trust for interaction with communities in schools particularly for valid and reliable data collection purposes. Different initiatives which include this collaborative study have been pivotal in directing efforts towards implementation of some changes in this direction. These include the introduction of a school subject for the harmonious development of the intellectual and moral capacities of students, updating of the roles of school psychologists, and the creation of departments that promotes students' well-being, among others. In addition, non-governmental organizations (e.g., UNICEF) have also piloted initiatives to train educational psychologists and mental health professionals to promote well-being and suicide reduction for the most vulnerable adolescents.

Author

• Ali Mhamed, Nazarbayev University