Paper short abstract:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Kazakhstan has undergone education policy reforms related to school curriculum. This paper tries to understand how curriculum makers had to balance between the narratives of building "united education space" and "integration into world education space".

Paper long abstract:

This paper tries to comprehend the policy dilemmas, curriculum makers in Kazakhstan had faced, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Specifically, curriculum makers had to balance between the nation-building demands of an independent country and the prevailing personality-oriented discourse of the "glasnost" period, which placed child at the center of educational process. Gradually, new demands of building market-oriented society have brought to the front the "travelling" discourse of competency-based education, which suddenly changed the rationale of policy reform towards "integration into world education space". This paper traces these paths drawing on relevant policy documents, curriculum papers, interview data with key stakeholders.