CAREER COUNSELING IN KAZAKHSTAN:
ADDRESSING STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY THROUGH PERSONALIZED INTERVENTIONS
Kamitova
Assem
Al-Farabi Kazakh National
University
2nd Year Master's Candidate on
“Pedagogy and Psychology”
Supervisor: Mukasheva A.B.
Doctor of Pedagogical
Sciences, Professor
The
author argues that education reform efforts in the Republic of Kazakhstan have
not provided enough effective career guidance and counseling to students,
especially students from rural and disadvantaged backgrounds. The paper
presents evidence that career satisfaction is significantly influenced by a
person’s psychological needs and aspirations, and that various negative
emotional, cultural, and structural factors exist that can influence people to
choose careers they end up unhappy with. The author draws insight from studies
on youth in Kazakhstan to identify some factors that may negatively affect
Kazakhstani students’ career choices, and affect rural and disadvantaged
Kazakhstani students disproportionately. The author makes several
recommendations for refocusing career guidance and counseling in Kazakhstan
Introduction
The government of the Republic
of Kazakhstan began to pursue ambitious reforms to its higher education system
as early as 1993.[i] These
efforts had two strategic objectives:
1)
Produce
graduates with the skills needed to develop Kazakhstan’s economy
2)
Allow
all sections of Kazakhstani society access to upward economic and social
mobility
To achieve the first
objective, the Kazakhstani government has pursued structural and curricular
reforms in its universities and technical schools. Joint projects with foreign
universities, NGOs, and groups like the World Bank are achieving significant
success in raising Kazakhstani higher education up to international standards.
Meanwhile, achieving the second objective involves removing the barriers that
might prevent students from disadvantaged backgrounds from taking advantage of
those new opportunities. Until now, the Kazakhstani government has focused
primarily on addressing financial, administrative, and social barriers through
grants, scholarships, and quotas. While this has helped many students go on to
higher education, it has not done enough to help students, especially those
from disadvantaged backgrounds, make positive career choices. This paper
contains a brief survey of international research on career choice and
sociological work on Kazakhstani young people. Findings demonstrate the
importance of career counseling in achieving Kazakhstan’s educational goals.
This paper identifies some specific challenges that may be negatively affecting
Kazakhstani students’ career choices and outlines recommendations for
addressing these issues through career counseling and guidance.
The
International Context
Recent research on career choice
highlights structural, cultural, and emotional factors that can lead to
negative outcomes. A negative outcome is when a person feels forced out from a
career or major that they wanted or forced into a career or major that they did
not want.[ii]
Structural factors include poverty and a lack of readiness caused by poor
schools. Cultural factors include family pressure and gender discrimination.
Emotional factors include anxiety, negative associations or affectivity, and
aversive stress.[iii] These
factors are often inter-connected and may be present more often in distinct
groups. As a result, effective career counseling must take on characteristics
of therapeutic counseling, and must be ultimately focused on the students’
wellbeing.[iv]
If students are empowered to voice what they really value, then a positive
career choice will be a natural consequence of their newfound confidence and
agency.
While career guidance should
start during compulsory education, it must also continue to be offered to students
throughout their studies. Many students initially make poor choices or get
derailed from their dreams by negative influences.[v]
For example, a 2014 study from the United States found that some scientific
disciplines more than others had cultures in the classrooms and the labs that
were hostile to women.[vi]
Women were far likely to drop out of these majors than others in the sciences.
Interestingly, academically gifted students may actually be in need of more
career guidance than average. A 2015 study found that such students often have
difficulty choosing a major or career because of their tendencies toward
perfectionism and the extra pressure they often feel from the expectations of
family and others.[vii] When
workers feel that their careers satisfy their psychological needs and
aspirations, they are more satisfied and committed to their jobs, even more
than when their work environment is well-funded and supported.[viii]
Factors
Affecting Career Choice in Kazakhstan
Young Kazakhstanis are
generally optimistic about their futures even as their standards for a ‘good career’
change.[ix]
Their values are somewhat more individualistic than those of the older
generations. They generally value self-expression more than adherence to
tradition, and see careers more as pathways to enrich themselves and their
families rather than for the benefit of society in general.[x]
This sentiment is visible in rural areas as well. A survey of Kazakhstani
students from rural areas found that 55.9% of respondents absolutely or mostly
agreed with the statement that “it is important to me to follow the traditions
of my family and to continue the occupation of my parents,” while 41.0% mostly
or absolutely disagreed.[xi]
The great importance they place on career is even more evident. While 87.5% of
respondents absolutely or mostly agreed that “living in the country is better
than because the land is beautiful here,” and majorities believe life in the
city to be difficult and dangerous, 87.8% agreed that “in the city I will be
able to find the kind of job that I like.”[xii]
As a result, 80.3% of respondents wanted their families and children to live in
the city, and just 8.5% preferred the countryside.[xiii]
It may be surprising, then,
that even in professions with high prestige and potential to make money,
evidence suggests that substantial numbers of young Kazakhstanis regret their
choice. A 2013 survey of medical students and interns at two large schools of
medicine in Almaty found that 33% of respondents regretted their choice of
career.[xiv]
This is a comparatively high rate of dissatisfaction internationally; only
13-14% of American and Australian medical students report similar regret.[xv]
Regret was not uniform: respondents from rural areas made up nearly half
(46.0%) of the survey and were 66.4% more likely to report regret than students
from urban areas (42.1% and 25.3%, respectively), and the 71.1% of respondents
whose studies were financed by state grants reported regret at nearly twice the
rate of self-financed students (38.4% to 19.9%, respectively).[xvi]
Meanwhile, the 20.8% of students who reported choosing the medical profession
because of the advice or influence of their parents, friends, or adult
relatives were significantly more likely to regret their choice than the 54.7%
who said they had always wanted to be doctors.[xvii]
Discussion
The Kazakhstani government’s
use of state grants is part of its efforts to make the urban middle class more
immediately accessible.[xviii]
The high rates of regret reported by rural and state-financed Almaty medical
students and interns is a worrying sign because dissatisfied students are more
likely to fail or become disaffected from society. The fact that a significant
number of students attribute their choice of major to their family, and a large
number of them regret it, may mean that the older generations are not in tune
with Kazakhstan’s changing economy. They may not be aware of the possibilities
for productive employment and entrepreneurialism that exist today and may push
for a “safe” or traditional choice. Young people, particularly from poor or
rural backgrounds, may be especially anxious to provide for their families and
may also not have information on how they could fulfill their aspirations –
which include a high salary – in newer or less traditional fields. Where
dedicated career counseling and guidance can help is in working with young
people to get them to recognize and stand up for their aspirations. It can
provide ways for students to see what kinds of careers are out there and
encourage them to explore more possibilities. Importantly, it can have a
disproportionate impact because students who benefit from career counseling can
help their friends and family members with the same processes and techniques.
Recommendations
1)
More
research needs to be conducted on students’ satisfaction with their choice of
career and education in Kazakhstan. Groups who demonstrate disproportionate
dissatisfaction with their choices should be identified.
2)
Students
who have aspirations to pursue higher education should have access to
information on career choice that explains how to identify potentially negative
influencing factors and gives options on possible careers that different majors
can lead to.
3)
Where
possible, sessions with career counselors should be encouraged, especially for
students who are having a lot of difficulty in choosing a career, or who come
from a group that has been identified as at risk for career dissatisfaction.
4)
Career
counselors need to be trained to work with students to empower them to choose a
career as part of a strategy to encourage their wellbeing, rather than be
focused on choosing a job based on what may be unreliable information from the
student.
[i] Anar Mukhtarova and Altynay Smith, "Aspiring International Standards: challenges and outcomes of project management in the context of Kazakhstan Higher Education," Life Science Journal 11, no. 6 (2014): 218.
[ii] Peter J. Robertson, “The well-being outcomes of career guidance,” British Journal of Guidance & Counselling 41, 3 (2013): 254-266.
[iii] Jason Hacker, Andrea Carr, Matthew Abrams, & Steven D. Brown, “Development of the career indecision profile: Factor structure, reliability, and validity,” Journal of Career Assessment 21, 1 (2013): 32-41.
[iv] Robertson, “The well-being outcomes of career guidance,” 2013.
[v] Hacker et al, “Development of the career indecision profile,” 2013.
[vi] Eric D. Deemer, Dustin B. Thoman, Justin P. Chase, & Jessi L. Smith, “Feeling the threat: Stereotype threat as a contextual barrier to women’s science career choice intentions,” Journal of Career Development 41, 2 (2014): 141-158.
[vii] Michelle C. Muratori & Carol Klose Smith, “Guiding the talent and career development of the gifted individual,” Journal of Counseling & Development 93, 2 (2015): 173-182.
[viii] Carolyn Timms & Paula Brough, “’I like being a teacher’ career satisfaction, the work environment and work engagement,” Journal of Educational Administration 51, 6 (2013): 768-789.
[ix] Abdikakimov Mukhtar, “Changing values in the context of generational approach in the Kazakhstan,” Asian Social Science 11, 14 (2015): 181-191.
[x] Mukhtar, “Changing values,” 2015.
[xi] T.V. Abankina, “The life plans of rural school students in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan,” Russian Education & Society 56, 7 (2014): 58-69; pg. 67.
[xii] Abankina, “The life plans of rural school students,” 2014; pp. 66-67.
[xiii] Abankina, “The life plans of rural school students,” 2014; pg. 67.
[xiv] Kamila M. Faizullina, Galina Kausova & Andrej M. Grjibovski, “Every third Kazakhstani medical student regrets the choice of education: A cross-sectional survey in Almaty,” Ethiopian Journal of Health and Development 27, 3 (2013): 235-242.
[xv] Faizullina, Kausova & Grjibovski, “Every third Kazakhstani,” 2013.
[xvi] Faizullina, Kausova & Grjibovski, “Every third Kazakhstani,” 2013.
[xvii] Faizullina, Kausova & Grjibovski, “Every third Kazakhstani,” 2013.
[xviii] Abankina, “The life plans of rural school students,” 2014.