Today, a plenary session of the August Republican Conference of Educators was held with the participation of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Yeraly Tugzhanov. The participants of the conference were teachers, parents and experts in education, representatives of the central and local government agencies, public figures in the education sector.

The issues of pre-school, school upbringing and education of children, technical and vocational, post-secondary education, development of additional education, ensuring accessibility and inclusiveness of education, creation of favorable conditions for children learning, child protection, monitoring and improving the quality of education were discussed at the plenary session.

In his greeting speech Deputy Prime Minister thanked the teachers for their perfect work during the pandemic and noted that the Head of State, attaching special importance to the development of education and upbringing, mentioned in his message of Sept. 1, 2021 that the system of education needs motivated and qualified teachers. Undoubtedly, teachers are the ones who play a key role in this. 

"The successful implementation of the Law "On the Status of Teachers" has made it possible to fundamentally raise the prestige of the teacher. Today teachers receive a decent salary for their work. As a result, today we see that the best school graduates when choosing a profession give preference to specialties of pedagogical directions. Today a teacher is one of the most honorable and at the same time the most important profession in the world.   Teachers are the ones who lay the initial knowledge, abilities, skills and values," Tugzhanov emphasized.

The format of student-school-parent cooperation, based on the mutual responsibility of the school and parents in the educational process, is being introduced in schools starting this year.

Also, from the first grade the labor training subject will be reintroduced. In addition, a new Career Guidance Counselor subject will be introduced in the 7th grade for the first time this year to help students choose their future profession. As a pilot project, greenhouses will be opened at schools.

Thanks to the measures taken by the Government to develop public-private partnerships, 47% of private kindergartens have helped reduce the waiting list by 30%. More than 700 kindergartens have been opened across the republic since 2021 alone.

At 100 colleges the projects on creation of small enterprises for attraction of students to work and acquisition of necessary experience are realized. Agreements have been signed with 500 enterprises for the implementation of college patronage. In 536 colleges dual training has been implemented.

During the meeting, Yeraly Tugzhanov instructed the Ministry of Education to:

• create a national association of teachers in academic subjects;
• organize republican and regional congresses of teachers to exchange and translate the best pedagogical practices within the framework of the 150th anniversary of Akhmet Baitursynov.
• develop a unified concept of education in educational organizations in order to unify the educational work in kindergartens, schools and colleges, aimed at the formation of the youth of New Kazakhstan.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety of children in the coming school year and instructed the akimats of the regions:

• to eliminate emergency and three-shift schools as soon as possible;
• to speed up the creation of territorial divisions of the National Center for Human and Children's Rights together with the National Center for Human Rights;
• to ensure compliance with requirements for the involvement of licensed organizations in the protection of schools;
• to organize work to ensure children's safety on the roads in conjunction with the Police Departments. Active police inspectors should be involved in this work.

Yeraly Tugzhanov concluded the conference by wishing teachers success in the new academic year and awarded the best workers in education with letters of gratitude.