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Karaganda State Technical University, Kazakhstan
Development
of Multilingual Education in Kazakhstan HEIs
In his statements and
addresses President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev
repeatedly spoke of the importance and relevance of the multilingualism
development for the multination Kazakhstan society. The idea of the language
triunity in Kazakhstan was for the first time announced by President in 2004,
later on recurring to it multiply. In October 2006 at the Õ²² session of the Kazakhstan
people Assembly the State head noted again that knowing at least three
languages is important for our children’s future. In 2007 in the Letter to the
Kazakhstan people “New Kazakhstan in the New World” the State head proposed to
start the staged realization of the cultural project “Language Triunity”. It
was the moment that set the reference point of the new language policy of
independent Kazakhstan that today can serve an example for other countries of
the world in its popularity degree in the society and the level of its
effectiveness. Having harmonically entering the process of the people spiritual
development, the language policy is an integral part of the general policy of
the scale social modernization. President considers that for success of
modernization it is very important for every citizen to be useful for their
country. Modernization is necessary for every Kazakhstan citizen. Only under
such understanding there can be achieved a wide social consensus and success
[1].
“Kazakhstan is to be perceived all round the world as a highly-educated country
which population uses three languages,
- President emphasized repeatedly. – They are: Kazakh as the state language,
Russian as the language of inter-nation communication, and English as the
language of successful integration in the global economy” [2].
For Kazakhstan citizens the idea of language triunity is especially
important as it was formulated by the State head as the answer to the challenge
of the time, as the solution of the vital need of the society that was actively
integrating into the global world. Today Kazakhstan integration in the world
community depends on consciousness and realization of a simple truth: the world
is open for those who can acquire new knowledge through acquiring the
dominating languages.
Thanks to the President's
initiative our state started implementation of the concept of multilingualism
in education because it is multilingualism that will serve strengthening
Kazakhstan competitiveness. The modern language situation in Kazakhstan allows
speaking of the triunity of languages as of an essential factor of
strengthening the public consent. Variety of cultures and languages, their
equal coexistence are the unconditional property of our country, and the
pursued language policy both provides observance of the language rights of all
ethnoses, and provides their free choice of language for communication,
education, realization of creative requirements. The development positivity of
the trilingualism for the Kazakhstan society is possible under condition of a
uniform political, ideological, cultural platform. And this platform is already
set by the President in the explanation of the essence of the Triunity of
Languages project — studying of the Kazakh language as the state one, Russian —
as the language of international communication and English — as the language of
successful integration into the global economy. Forming equal conditions for
studying three designated languages does not mean the equal sphere of their
functioning, equal functional loading and, at last, their equal status. At this
the emphasis is placed on the pedagogical component of this cultural project
which can be fully designated as multilingual education. At the same time the
activation of polemics round the language situation in Kazakhstan in the last
some years is connected with multilingualism that allows speaking of new
aspects of language education [3].
In these conditions the
problem of formation and development of multilingual education is becoming
topical. For the solution of the task of effective introduction of
multilingualism set by our President in education, it is necessary to bring
into a uniform system the fragmentary acquired practice of multilingual
education at separate higher education institutions and schools of the Republic
of Kazakhstan and to provide continuity of educational programs. It will
demand, in turn, for the development of a complex of scientific and
methodological recommendations on realization of the principle of continuity of
multilingual education in the system "school - higher education
institution" which social and economic effect is defined by that there
will be formed real prerequisites for the solution of the tasks set in the
State program of education development 2011-2020: "... training
pedagogical staff with multilingual education at higher education institutions
of the country". 100% of the population of Kazakhstan are have to know the
Kazakh language by 2020, 95% — Russian
and 25% — English, but there are also intermediate reference points.
For the purpose of developing
an innovative, multilingual model of education the number of schools providing
education in three languages will increase from 33 to 700; the number of the
Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools network will extend from 6 to 20. These schools
will become basic platform for approbation of the multilingual model of
education, innovations in education" [3] including:
• increasing demands for the
state language;
• increasing prestige of using
the state language;
• preserving the language
variety in Kazakhstan;
• preserving the Russian
language functioning in the communicative-and-language space,
• studying English and other
foreign languages due to the system of scientific-and-methodological support of
activity of continuous multilingual education subjects activity;
• forming multilingual
educational environment; expanding the infrastructure of multilingual
education;
• developing a cross-cultural
and communicative paradigm of modern language education;
• developing the country intellectual
potential on the basis of her citizens familiarizing with values of language
and culture [4].
The Ministry of Education and
Science took concrete steps for introduction of multilingual education at
higher education institutions of the country, in particular, the volume of
credits for studying languages in the state standards in the trajectory
“Education” that will permit the third-year students in the volume of two
credits to study disciplines "Professional Kazakh/Russian" and
"Profession-oriented foreign language". Basic higher education
institutions of the Republic accumulated certain experience of multilingual education introduction in training
pedagogical staffs in the field of multilingualism, there has begun complex
work for the formation of educational and methodological materials in English,
there is developed an academic base for effective studying the Kazakh, Russian
and English languages, there has begun the language training of teachers.
Groups of authors developed
educational and methodical complexes in special disciplines in English,
trilingual terminological dictionaries are published under the signature stamp
of the Ministry of Education and Science, there are published manuals,
practical works, there is successfully implemented the Republican budgetary
program "Professional Development and Retraining of Personnel of State
Organizations of education". Besides, there are held training seminars,
the Republican Olympic Games in English, there are being developed educational and
methodological complexes in English for specialized schools with training in
three languages [4].
Multilingualism and
multilingual teaching foreign languages is an absolute necessity, a command of
time as the whole world is polyethnic, polylingual. And in the solution of the
main problem of the modern world — the consent and mutual understanding between
people, overcoming the difficulties of interethnic communication,
cross-cultural communication — there can help in a larger extent preservation
and support of introducing multilingualism in every state and in the relations
between the states.
The cultural project
"Triunity of Languages" proposed by President of the Republic of
Kazakhstan N. Nazarbayev can fully be considered as one of long-term strategies
of Kazakhstan development. Implementation of this project in many respects will
cause forming a new generation of Kazakhstan citizens who know several
languages, have ample opportunities of positive growth of their essential
forces and forming competitiveness both in the professional sphere and in
personality self-realization.
Literature
1 Nazarbayev N. A. New Kazakhstan in the new
world//Kazakhstanskaya Pravda. — No. 33(25278). — 2007. — March 1
2 Nazarbayev N.A. Social modernization of
Kazakhstan: Twenty steps to Society of General Work//Kazakhstanskaya Pravda. —
2012. — No. 218-219. — July 10.
3 State program of education development in the
Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011-2020//ru.government.kz/resources/docs/doc18
4 State program of languages development in the
Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011-2020//edu.gov.kz