Teachers’ Attitudes towards Implementation of the Upgraded Curriculum in a Secondary School in Aktau, City of Mangystau Province, Kazakhstan

Abstract

Currently, the educational system of Kazakhstan is undergoing the significant reforms related to the secondary school curriculum as the previous one inherited from the Soviet times was criticized for being ineffective in allowing students to develop the twenty-first-century skills. This issue was revealed during the research on secondary education conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2014. To address the problem, the OECD team recommended reviewing the content of the school curriculum. The given recommendation has been realized in the form of the upgraded curriculum, the implementation of which started in the 2016-2017 academic year. The study aimed to explore teachers' perceptions of implementing the upgraded curriculum in one of the mainstream schools of Aktau, to identify their attitudes towards new reform. It was also focused on the factors supporting and impeding the implementation of new curriculum. Mixed methods design was used to provide an in-depth exploration of teachers' attitudes. This approach first identified to what extent were teachers satisfied with new practices, and then explained their answers in more detail through the qualitative data from selected participants. Participants with different backgrounds regard the issue from different perspectives. The findings of the quantitative part show that most teachers have positive beliefs about new reform; only a few statements demonstrated negative attitudes of teachers towards assessment. These answers were examined more deeply in the qualitative part of the study, which found that more experienced teachers are less satisfied with the changes in the content and pedagogy while less experienced teachers see only opportunities in the upgraded program. However, the obstacles caused by inadequate educational resources, diversity and the big number of students, poor parental involvement, memories and pressure from the top constrain their enthusiasm to implement the new changes.