At the Government session today, April 4, chaired by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov, acting Minister of Education Gani Beisembayev reported on measures planned to improve the quality of teachers and management in the education system.

First of all, Beisembayev spoke about how the certification of teachers would be carried out.

"The professional level of teachers is determined during an appraisal. According to the current rules, the certification procedure includes three stages: qualification assessment, a comprehensive analytical synthesis of performance and knowledge assessment," the Acting Minister of Education said.

However, there are certain problems, including the collection by teachers of a large number of documents in electronic and paper versions, the lengthy review by the attestation commission of submitted documents, and the quality of test assignments. Another problem is the preservation of the principles of objectivity, transparency and academic honesty in the attestation process.

"In order to regulate these problems, the main tool will be automation of the appraisal process. In simple terms, appraisal will be carried out "at the push of a button". That is, the teacher only confirms that he or she intends to pass the attestation, and the personal documents of the attestant and relevant materials determining the level of his or her qualification are automatically summarized and analyzed by the information system, which summarizes the results in the shortest possible time," Beisembayev said.

Under the planned new changes, teacher professionalism and success will be directly linked to student achievement.

Provision is made for exemption from the attestation procedure for teachers who are 5 years away from retirement age, provided they do not continue their teaching activity.

The certification testing procedure will also be improved. The working group proposes to assess the subject knowledge of teachers with a gradual increase in the percentage of tasks of high, medium, low levels depending on the qualification category. In the area of "Diagnosis of professional competences of a teacher" it is recommended to test graduates of pedagogical specialities, first-time teachers and those who have a break in work experience.

In order to improve management in the education system, a programme for the selection and training of 1,000 leaders of change in education on the model of the Presidential Youth Personnel Reserve was discussed in working groups. Teachers or deputy leaders with citizenship of the Republic of Kazakhstan, higher education and teaching experience of at least 3 years will participate in the programme.

Three stages of training and inclusion in the national talent pool have been defined - selection, training and inclusion in the talent pool.

After each module, a midterm assessment takes place. Based on the results of the final assessment, teachers are offered internships at leading schools.

In this way, from 2024 onwards, a pool of new-format leaders of change in education will be recruited every year. This will also help address the issue of providing new schools being built as part of the Comfortable School national project with trained leaders.