3.7. Enrolment rate in secondary education for children doing distance learning in rural area When scrutinised, materials from the MoES, the Agency for Statistics and other sources demonstrate a lack of official systematic data on this matter. This project does not provide for research into such issues. Therefore, we provide information on general conditions existing in the country for students’ distance learning (DL). This appears to be an area of modernisation relevant for Kazakhstan given its extensive territory and low population density. It is well-known that DL efficiency depends on software, hardware, teaching materials and readiness of teachers and students to use ICT. In 2010, schools had a ratio of 18 students per computer (versus 26 per computer in 2007). A total of 98 percent of schools have Internet access including 97 percent of rural schools. A total of 34 percent of schools have access to broadband Internet. There are national educational websites such as www.eduportal.kz and www.sabak.kz and others for experts, teachers, students and parents58. There is a satellite DL channel (SDLC). Bilim Arnasy educational programmes have been aired weekly on national TV since 2009. There is a DL portal (http://moodle.rcie.kz/moodle/) in the National Informatization Centre (NIC) launched under the UNESCO project ‘ICT-enhanced DL for Secondary Schools in Remote and Vulnerable Regions’59. A total of 3,385 schools (43.3 percent) have interactive equipment (back in 2006 there were no interactive boards in the country)60. A total of 77 percent of school textbooks were converted into e-books. Stageby-stage upgrade of computers is expected to take place in secondary education organisations, with 60 percent to be upgraded in 2009-2011 and 2012-2014 and 40 percent in 2015-2017 and 2018-202061. According to experts, notwithstanding all achievements, educational institutions, especially rural ones, are not yet ready for fully-fledged distance learning. In rural areas, they still use outdated telephone exchanges, there is an acute shortage of content/software for teacher and student training and self-training62 as well as e-tools for analysing the quality of the DL-format educational process. There are quite few qualified methodologists, teachers, tutors and web-site administrators. Differ-
ent oblasts have from five percent to 36 percent of digital educational resources for students63. A mandatory standard for basic DL technologies is yet to be developed. In other words, as a new educational and socially significant information service for rural GSE institutions, distance learning is, at present, at the start of a long journey.
Quality of general secondary education Quality of education is determined, in the first instance, by staffing, learning achievements, teaching-methodological materials, financial, material and technical resources64. As reported by the MoES, in the 2009/10 academic year there were 274,900 teachers in daytime comprehensive schools, a 2.2 percent increase from 2007 to 2008, with 36.2 percent and 63.8 percent of them working in urban and rural areas respectively. The number of university-educated teachers has increased by 2.7 percent (accounting for 86 percent), the number of young teachers having a teaching experience of less than three years has increased by 0.7 percent; the number of teachers with a teaching experience of over 20 years has dropped by 28 percent. In 2009, 27 percent of teachers had no professional grade; each fifth teacher was over 50 years old. In recent years, schools have been short of teachers of Kazakh, Russian and foreign languages, mathematics, physics and computer science. In 2009, there were 2,440 teaching vacancies. The number of teaching staff in colleges and vocational lyceums has increased (by 4.7 and 13.3 respectively), but the most qualified and promising teachers prefer to quit the TVE system for enterprises; about 12 percent of ET65 were 55 years old or over. Education quality indicators are both positive and negative. From 2007 to 2009, UNT average scores improved (from 63.3 to 74.9), just like results of the ISM66 of grade 9 learning achievement (from 24.7 to 61.6)67. A total of 54.5 percent of Altyn Belgi contenders were awarded Altyn Belgi medals (versus 34.3 percent in 2008). A total of 895 people (versus 864 in 2008) won international and republican academic competitions and scientific project contests68. At the same time, the number of straight-A students in senior grades is
58
www.schools.kz, www.stportal.kz, www.rumcdo.kz, www.obrazovanie.kz, www.mektep-rk.kz, www.uroki.ru, www.collegy.ucoz.ru.
59
MOODLE (Modular Object Oriented Digital Learning Environment), an open software package designed for PSOs.
60
Speech of Minister of Education and Science J. Tuymebayev at the extended meeting of RoK MOES Board with the participation of the RoK Prime Minister on 03/02/2010. www.edu.gov.kz.
61
Informatization Strategy of the Education System of the Republic of Kazakhstan till 2020, Astana. 2008
62
Extract from an interview of the rector of the International University of Information Technologies D. Shynybekov to BNews.kz news agency on December, 7, 2009
63
Informatization Strategy of the Education System of the Republic of Kazakhstan till 2020, Astana. 2008
64
Experts believe that evaluation of quality based on such a parameter as the number of students per teacher is not reliable or objective in a thinly populated country like Kazakhstan. Because of a plenty of ungraded schools a small number of students per teacher is more of a need than an achievement.
65
Engineers and teachers
66
Interim state monitoring of learning achievements
67
Collected Works, Education and science in figures. Astana. 2009. Slide 11
68
Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan J. Tuymebayev. ‘Falling behind in terms of knowledge should not be allowed. 2009, www.edu.gov.kz
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN KAZAKHSTAN 2010 To Achieve Universal Primary Education 45