ASTANA – President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed the law “Introducing amendments in legislative acts of Kazakhstan on education” as part of the 100 Concrete Steps Plan, to be effective Jan. 1, 2017, reported the Akorda press service.
“The new amendments will introduce ‘dual training,’ renewal of school educational standards and development of functional literacy,” noted the release.
The dual training will bond the employer and educational institution in the preparation of qualified personnel with a predominance of industrial training and practice in the enterprise. It will also help establish the competence of the authorised body to determine the order of organising and conducting the mandatory practical student training and coordinate the dual training.
The new law also stipulates mandatory internships beginning in a university student’s second year, which in turn obligates the enterprises to create new jobs for this purpose. The law will help lift the responsibility of domestic industries, national companies and human resource agencies, according to its developers.
The amendments will also provide requirements for developing mandatory school uniforms in primary, basic secondary and general secondary educational institutions.
Free technical and vocational education by assigning graduates with established, high-level working skills will serve as a state guarantee, the press service noted.
The government spends considerable funds on education; however a large number of graduates fail to find employment in their fields. Hence, Article 47 of the law “On education” was amended as follows: graduates who used state financial support are obligated to work no less than three years after graduation in the specialised sector.
The 12-year educational system, created by the 1992 European Board declaration, has been adopted by 136 countries, including France, Germany, Japan, the United States and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, as well as the Baltic states.
Kazakhstan has been working on the transition to a 12-year educational system as part of the state programme of education development for 2011-2020 and hopes to fully switch to the new system by 2020.
Nazarbayev first voiced the idea of the change in 2000. Four years later, the initial amendments were introduced to the law “On education” as follows: the 12-year educational system will include four years of elementary school, six years of middle school and two years of high school.
“The 12-year educational system will help solve the strategic projection task for the new national model of education,” according to the Astana-bilim.kz report.
