Tazhimbet Guldana2023-11-082023-11-082020Tazhimbet G. (2020). The role of leadership in the context of school improvement in Kazakhstan. Graduate School of Education.http://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/7490The education system in Kazakhstan has one single centralized authority at the level of the Ministry of Education (national government). This has a top-down approach, which leaves no space for local education authorities (GorONOs and OblONOs or Education Departments of cities and oblasts) to make autonomous decisions towards their individual aims and initiatives (OECD, 2014; World Bank, 2015). The main goals of Kazakhstan's educational policy regarding the enhancement of the quality of leadership at mainstream schools in the country and head teachers’ expansion in autonomy are outlined in the Republic of Kazakhstan's State Education Development Program (SPED) for 2011-2020 (MoES, 2010) and have a direct impact on the country's school leadership practice (Yakavetz, 2016). This is, in turn, is mirrored in the red tape, rigorous planning system, and weak school manage ment, which are focused mainly on maintaining the status quo. In other words, “velocity” rather than leadership, which is about making a difference and improving performance, or “acceleration”. As the OECD report (2014) highlights “… policies in support of school principals are considerably more limited, despite an anticipated increase in responsibilities for principals in connection with the education reform”...enAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United Statesschool leadershipType of access: openteacher leadershipmainstream schools in KazakhstanArticle