Global Forum of OECD Education and Skills 2030 First Virtual Meeting

    The “Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools” AEO (hereinafter – NIS) continues its work in the OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 project as a national coordinator for Kazakhstan.

In May, the OECD organised the first virtual meeting of the Global Forum of Education and Skills 2030 (hereinafter – the Forum). The Forum was attended by the NIS representatives, namely, Zhanar Abdildina, Zarina Khamidulina, Aizhan Ramazanova, Nurgali Yelshibekov, director of the NIS ChB Petropavlovsk, Narken Burkenov, mathematics teacher of the NIS PhM Semey. Also, the Forum was attended by Dzhafar Kabidenov, Ardana Izimova and Ali Stambayev, 10 and 12 grade students of the Almaty NIS PhM. The Forum brought together over 300 representatives from around the world.

The Forum aimed to provide a space for sharing challenges, and an opportunity to formulate possible solutions to overcome the challenges in curriculum delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to explore the experience of other countries. The meeting involved three focus groups (FG), with FG1 – policy makers, representatives of government bodies of various countries, FG2 – teachers and teacher educators, and FG3 – school and university students from around the world.

For two days, groups of international experts worked on  ZOOM. Particular attention was paid to opinions and learning experience of students from all over the world. Our students were members to different focus groups, so they were able to work with students from Brazil, Germany, South Korea; teachers from Japan, UK, USA, China; policy makers from the USA, Denmark, and Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands.

The moderators of the groups provided the NIS students with the opportunity to speak on behalf of their groups and present the results at the final session.   

One of the key ideas proposed by Dzhafar was the idea of creating a group of students in the form of student self-government so that they could work together with teachers and school administration to ensure smooth alignment of the learning process in the current tough period. Ardana emphasised the importance of student motivation. She suggested conducting surveys of students to identify factors affecting their motivation. International expert Peeter Mehisto cited Ardana’s ideas in his presentation.

In the group Ali was a member to, a key topic for discussion was the issue of student anxiety related to exams and progression to higher education in the current period. Uncertainty was reported to be the main source of this problem, and therefore, one of the main solutions proposed was ensuring proper communication. Ali suggested focusing on establishing relations between schools (students, teachers, parents) and stakeholders who make key decisions – universities, ministries, and examination bodies.

In conclusion, the students raised the issue of revising the current exam system used to assess students’ abilities, which was much thought provoking for the majority of Forum participants.

The second virtual meeting of the OECD Education and Skills 2030 is scheduled for this autumn.  

Satylova Aiganym took part in the design and development of video lessons for online learning in comprehensive schools.

  Staff members of the Centre for Educational Programmes, NIS, have been actively developing video lessons for online learning in comprehensive schools. On 22 April, 2020, Satylova Aiganym Elyubayevna delivered a Kazakh lesson for Grade 5 students online. This lesson is the first of 13 in total she designed that will be broadcasted on “Balapan” TV channel. Satylova Aiganym has 10 years of teaching experience, 5 of them – in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools. Since 2018, she has been a subject expert and moderator of the NIS platform for teaching and learning materials designed for teachers of comprehensive schools.

The work on creating video-lessons within distance learning for mainstream schools students is in progress.

A large team of teachers, video operators, editors undertakes the further work on creating video-lessons for distance learning.

Staff members of Centre for Educational Programmes, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools AEO are taking an active part in the project. 

On April 16, 2020 on Balapan national channel, Aiymgul Ungarbayeva delivered the first online-lesson on History of Kazakhstan for Grades 7-8 students with the Kazakh language of instruction.

Aiymgul Ungarbayeva is one of the curriculum developers on History of Kazakhstan and Law Basics.Aiymgul is a History teacher with 13-year experience, a textbook author, and a moderator of Educational Resource Portal developed by Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools AEO for mainstream school teachers.

Kulmagmbetova Axlu starts her participation in the project on organizing distance learning for students of mainstream schools.

    Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan launched a large-scale project to organise online learning for mainstream school students on April 6, 2020. Employees of the Centre for Educational Programmes NIS took an active part in this project.

On April 7, Akslu Kulmagambetova delivered a lesson on Kazakh Language and Literature for Grade 9 students with Russian as medium of instruction on air of Yel Arna Republican TV channel.

Akslu Kulmagambetova is one of the subject programme authors and developers for Kazakh Language and Kazakh Language and literature, subject expert and moderator at Educational Resource Portal. This lesson was the first of 15 lessons she developed to broadcast on “Yel Arna” TV channel.