In a YouTube interview with Astana Times, Rita Almeida, who is head of Education Global Practice Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank, has been covering some of these trends for Kazakhstan and their possible ramifications. She mentioned the importance of properly addressing them as critical to promoting inclusive and sustainable growth as well as mitigating the middle-income trap.
Changes in population and school networks
The teaching profession, like many other occupations, can be restructured because of the increased life expectancies worldwide. A window of opportunity arises for nations to re-evaluate the necessary qualifications and profiles of their teaching workforce as older educators retire, but this aging transition requires deliberate planning and investment.
Workplaces are Shaped by Technology.
Education has two principal drivers: progress in technology, and especially automation. The automation of processes has catalyzed the decline of repetitive jobs and sharpened the demand for higher-level cognitive and emotional competencies in the workforce. Almeida further illustrates that critical thinking aspects, along with social-emotional competencies such as effective communication, empathy, and emotional resilience, are vital now more than ever.
On top of that, digitization is one of the greatest influences on the administration of schools and teachers’ work, hence shifting the requirement for global educators to new digital skills. Such shifts in technology have a direct impact on the competencies students and educators are expected to possess due to education systems.
There is a silver lining, but also a hurdle to overcome. The World Bank’s Human Capital Index indicates a child born in Kazakhstan today is predicted to reach only 63 percent of his or her potential productivity by age 18. In other words, the gap is attributable roughly 30% to health and education service shortfalls. Still, Almeida remained optimistic, underscoring Kazakhstan’s growing investment in education and strong policy commitment to adopting best policies. For her, the core issue is lack of effort and reliability.
Navigating the AI Landscape
Almeida voiced reservations regarding the unconditional embrace of artificial intelligence. She called on policymakers and educators to at least pose the questions of what objectives they hope to achieve with a particular technology and why it should be employed in the first place. It may be for improved service delivery systems, classroom pedagogies, learning outcomes, or even educational management systems, among others. Technology without a defined intention becomes, put bluntly, purposeless nonsense.
Keeping track of new approaches needs to happen in tandem with evaluative processes, as the impacts have in the past been observed in cases where technology works, such as with informative SMS messages sent to primary school head teachers, which spurred budget utilization, or online coaching that starkly improved students’ achievements.
While Almeida accepts the merits of advances such as SMS notifications, online coaching, and personalized learning applications, the majority still lack rigorous empirical validation, least of all their effectiveness. Enhancing these already successful tools and remaining cost-effective poses a challenge. There are essential prerequisites that must be met for these programs to be successfully implemented, such as internet access, educator training, and IT assistance.
Almeida notes the lack of adequate funding for school infrastructure in the “one laptop per child” initiative was a mistake many countries made, too much attention for the hardware and not enough on the capacity building or infrastructure prerequisites.
The Road Taken by Kazakhstan
Like other middle-income countries, Kazakhstan currently stands at a crossroads. Education systems must be innovative and equitable and must demonstrate resilience to cope with megatrends of demography, technology, climate change, and AI. As Almeida notes, Kazakhstan has already created a foundation for itself with stable student outcomes post-COVID-19, improvements in science results (PISA 2022), high student resilience, and comparatively small achievement gaps between various regions and socioeconomic groups. The next phase of the country’s development will depend on how they decide to prioritize and invest in their people, the country’s most important resource for future prosperity.
