Educational Leadership: Secondary Education Perspectives From Kazakhstan

Introduction

Kazakhstan is a post-Soviet country that became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has undergone many political, cultural and economic changes as it struggles to have a new identity of its own from the past Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) practice.

Educational reforms in secondary education and the establishment of new schooling structures, such as Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) in Kazakhstan, have had some impact on education leadership in this sphere. Yakavets (2017) indicates that Kazakhstan embarked on a journey to transform its education to be on par with that of other European countries. The educational reforms started with the vision of the former president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to have Kazakhstan join the top 30 developed nations in the world. Yakavets (2017) points out that the State Program of Education Development (SPED) in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011–2020 (MoES, 2010) objective 4 highlights the significance attached to school improvement to achieve the goal of schooling through education management practice.

Therefore, this chapter provides a comprehensive account of the metamorphosis of the concept of educational leadership and how reforms at this level have influenced its application and understanding. This chapter provides an overview of the conceptualization of the notion of school leadership, then discusses the attributes of school leadership in a Kazakhstani context and its challenges. Some lessons are drawn from the analysis of school leadership notions and practices discussed in this chapter.

Literature Review

This review chapter conceptualizes the concept of school leadership and aims to answer the following questions:

• How is school leadership conceptualized internationally?

• What are the characteristics of school leadership in Kazakhstan?

• Which challenges (if any) do school leaders experience in enacting school leadership?

The literature review represents an attempt to synthesize and give an overview of school leadership conceptualizations and practices both internationally and in Kazakhstan. The criteria used to select the literature were guided by the availability of supportive empirical evidence. Speculative kinds of literature were deliberately excluded. While the literature was reviewed for the purposes of a study focused on school leadership, some of the reviewed work had inclined towards general educational leadership as the two disciplines are closely related, and some researchers seem to be influenced by the latter.

I consulted several databases, such as Eric, Scopus and Google Scholar. Further sources of relevant information were internationally accredited journals, including the International Journal of Education Management, Administration and Leadership. The Nazarbayev University library was consulted, and books, articles and electronic sources were perused for relevant, up-to-date literature on the topic.

The Notion of Leadership and School Leadership

The concept of leadership is associated with the leader's influence to achieve an organization's aims and objectives (Makoelle, 2022). It is believed that a leader can make followers work towards the accomplishment of organizational goals (Makoelle, 2011). However, the notion of leadership relates to three other concepts, i.e. management, administration and governance (Makoelle, 2014). Bush, quoting Gunter (2004), cites that conceptualization of this area is sometimes called educational administration, educational management and, more recently, educational leadership. In Makoelle's views, the notion of leadership has to do with the leaders' ability to influence the happenings in an organization to accomplish its vision, mission and goals (2022). The notion of management deals with issues of an organization's daily functioning, including planning, organizing, leading and control (Botha & Makoelle, 2012). It may also include management functions such as decision-making, delegation and problem-solving. Governance addresses the funding, policymaking and rule-setting for an organization, which may include the setting of the strategic vision and mission of an organization. On the other hand, the concept of administration has to do with the recording and execution of the decisions of leadership, management and governance. While the notion of leadership is key, it has to be exercised in the context of good management, governance and administration.

The notion of school leadership is derived from the concept of educational leadership. However, due to the elusive nature of the concept, various authors describe the characteristics of school leadership rather than attempting to define the concept. For instance, Bush (2003) avers that the understating of the concept of school leadership is centred on rallying people around a set of values that may enhance the improvement and effectiveness of the school. In reviewing the different frameworks on school leadership in different countries, Pont et al. (2008) have found that in countries such as Chile, New Zealand, Denmark, North Ireland, Scotland and Korea, the notion of school leadership was predetermined by a set of standards which school leaders had to comply with.

UNESCO (2015) equates effective school leadership with sustainable school leadership. According to UNESCO, this means that sustainable school leadership refers to leadership that inspires confidence and vision, and promotes collaboration among all stakeholders, which are part of the school community. School leader attributes include, among others, being a visionary, a problem-solver, an instructional leader, a decision-maker, value-driven, a motivator and a life-long learner.

While the concept of school leadership might be thought to mean one thing, the literature points out that the notion is multifaceted and multidimensional. Several leadership models are associated with effective school leadership, i.e. transformational, instructional and distributed leadership models, to name a few.

According to Yang (2014), transformational leadership enhances the school leader's ability to form ideas, formulate a common vision and collaboratively achieve organizational goals. Yang also believes that transformational leadership enhances the school improvement drive. On the same note, Quin et al. (2015) contend that transformational leadership is key in school leaders setting an example of how students' performances could be improved, and they believe that transformational leadership should be part of in-service and pre-service school leaders' training.

Ngang (2011) is also of the view that to enhance school culture, transformational leadership has become indispensable. Litz and Blaik-Hourani (2020) think transformational leadership nurtures the school culture, enhancing the attainment of teachers' learning ethos and collective motivation.

There is a view that transformational leadership has to take its roots in the context of good instructional leadership. Hallinger (2005) describes instructional leadership as working with teachers to improve teaching and learning. It is goal-directed and focuses on leading and managing curriculum instruction and assessment.

Hallinger (2005) understands instructional leadership as developing a school's mission, managing the instructional process and enhancing a positive school environment. According to the Education Improvement Research Centre (2022), instructional leadership is intentional, impactful and a core attribute of effective school leadership, continuously improving teaching and learning. It is believed that instructional leadership is key for collaboration, support, learning conversations and student learning output.

In their work entitled ‘Successful School Leadership’, Day et al. (2020) provide a helpful synthesis of the dimension of school leadership. Key dimensions of successful leadership are identified as (p. 6):

• defining the vision, values and direction;

• improving conditions for teaching and learning;

• redesigning the organization: aligning roles and responsibilities;

• enhancing effective teaching and learning;

• redesigning and enriching the curriculum;

• enhancing teacher quality (including succession planning);

• building relationships inside the school community;

• building relationships outside the school community;

• defining and modelling common values;

• ensuring students' well-being and providing equitable access to support for all students.

However, they also mention that not all leadership models can lead to a successful school leadership practice. They further argue that transformational leadership, instructional leadership and distributed leadership models are some of the approaches that may promote good school leadership. Pont et al. (2008) suggest that while effective school leadership may influence student performances positively, it does not happen automatically; several aspects are critical in achieving this, i.e. the provision of some degree of autonomy and support to school leaders, making clear the leadership expectations regarding student performances and making sure that there is a striking balance between policy and practice. Distributed school leadership is also believed to be essential for school effectiveness (Pont et al., 2008). In countries like New Zealand, England, North Ireland and Belgium, teachers are also in a position to exercise some form of leadership, which is highly prioritized. A clear example of distributed leadership exists in Finland, where the distribution of leadership occurs at municipal, district and school levels. Various authors seem to suggest the different benefits of effective distributed school leadership. For instance, Hassanieh and David (2020) posit that distributed school leadership leads to effective school governance. Makoelle (2011) also mentions that self-managing schools, which are mostly effective schools, have a high level of leadership distribution, as most members of their teaching staff mostly adequately informed about the goals, operations and activities of the school that are geared towards the attainment of the vision and mission of the school. Triegaardt (2013) postulates that in the South African school context, distributed leadership may go a long way in fostering collaboration and cooperation, which are critical and pivotal for school leaders to democratically share their expertise in the interest of the process of school improvement, which in turn influences the process of school effectiveness positively.

Day et al. (2020) also identify the following challenges that school leaders may face in their work (p. 6):

• ensuring consistently good teaching and learning;

• integrating a sound grasp of basic knowledge and skills within a broad and balanced curriculum;

• managing behaviour and attendance;

• strategically managing resources and the environment;

• building the school as a professional learning community;

• ensuring well-being among staff and students;

• being or becoming emotionally literate;

• developing partnerships beyond the school to encourage parental support for learning and new learning opportunities.

However, the identified challenges seem to stem from the school leader themselves. In analyzing school leadership in the European context, the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) (2012) in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom found that the general challenges of school leadership in Europe included but not limited to (p. 10):

• heavy workload;

• salary disproportionate to workload;

• responsibilities are vaguely defined and delimited;

• lack of continuous professional development (CPD) of school leaders;

• ageing school leaders, nearing retirement;

• loss of professional leadership experience due to low gradual transition;

• gender imbalance of school leaders in (pre-) primary, secondary and higher education;

• unclear, and highly varying, recruitment procedures;

• low attractiveness of the school leader profession;

• decreasing the number of qualified candidates, who apply for school leadership positions.

It is evident from reviewing the list above that some of the challenges listed are also prevalent in the Kazakhstani context. Therefore, it becomes crucial to put school leadership in Kazakhstan into perspective.

School Leadership in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan, as part of central Asia and a post-Soviet country, has a unique history regarding school leadership. UNESCO (2015) noted that despite reform efforts, the concept of school leadership remains neglected in Central Asia. The legacy of the Soviet Union, which consisted of a highly centralized school governance system, lack of enabling legal, political and implementation framework for effective school leadership, barriers to selecting good leaders i.e. because of unclear roles, low incentives and morale, lack of transparency in recruitment, and poor working environments and conditions, persists.

The appointment of school leaders in Kazakhstan is done on a competitive basis according to the order of the Ministry of Education and Science, no. 57 of 2012 (Kussainov et al., 2019). The appointment is handled by the education authority under which the school falls. Order no. 338 of 2009 determines the standard for the requirements for the appointment of the school leader, i.e. five years of teaching experience and an additional one year of managerial experience as well as a clear record of good conduct and no involvement in corruption or any other misconduct. The appointment is for five years but renewable based on professional, administrative and academic performance.

School leadership in the context of Kazakhstan happens within the framework of education reforms. According to the OECD (2015a) report, the complexity of school leadership is centred on issues of the quality of learning outcomes by students and the language of instruction.

There are general educational factors that hamper effectiveness and school improvement, for example,

• overall public spending is lesser than that of other OECD countries;

• shifts in schools which are detrimental to the management of instructional time and curriculum delivery;

• need for more equity and inclusive education to support disadvantaged students;

• need for clear professional standards for teachers and school leaders;

• number of staff and remuneration;

• need to shift teacher and school evaluation to a more developmental approach.

While there have been attempts to improve the quality of schools with the endeavours such as the introduction of per-student funding, there has, however, been inflexible central planning which creates a hurdle for school-based decision-making and resource management. This view is echoed by Yakavets (2017), who contends the fact that the schooling system in Kazakhstan is rigid and inflexible and does not provide the opportunity for leadership reflection, critique and innovation. Furthermore, Ospanov (2017) believes that Kazakhstani school improvement drives are hampered by the lack of in-service and pre-service training for school leaders.

School leadership in Kazakhstan seems to be more positional than non-positional. According to the legislation, Decree No. 77 of the Republic of Kazakhstan, each school management is composed of a principal and three types of deputies, i.e. vice principals (OECD, 2015a). According to OECD (2015a), the roles of the school management team are as follows:

• A school principal in Kazakhstan is responsible for the general compliance with policies and norms, approving school plans, staffing, teaching allocation, recruitment and appointment of teachers, infrastructure, teacher professional development and appraisal, student well-being and support, as well as general management of all school activities.

• The deputy or vice principal for academic affairs is responsible for managing teaching and learning and plans teaching schedules, plans for the improvement of pedagogical practices and monitors student and teacher performances.

• The deputy principal for educational work is responsible for managing extra-curricular activities, supporting homeschooling and students with special educational needs, recruitment of senior counsellors, and schoolteachers, and serving as community and parent liaison.

• The deputy principal for economic activities is responsible for the management of school financial resources, the upkeeping of the school environment and the safety of the school technology equipment.

Mukhtarova and Medeni (2013) highlight the fact that in Kazakhstan, the notion of school leadership is influenced by the transformation and reform nature of the Kazakhstani education system, as it changes from its Soviet past. According to these authors, the types of schools in Kazakhstan determine the leadership context, approach and style. Most schools in Kazakhstan are comprehensive, offering primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education. There are also Gymnasiums (Linguistics and Technical), Lyceums and profession-oriented schools (p. 12).

Citing the Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2011), Mukhtarova and Medeni (2013) further state that about 7755 comprehensive schools accommodate about 2.5 million students. Schooling takes about 12 years, from 6–7 years to 18 years. There are two streams of schools, i.e. the local schools, which are urban and rural, and the NIS established to transform education towards international standards. The NIS have introduced flexible governance and innovative curriculum in an attempt to internationalize secondary education in Kazakhstan. With their autonomy, the NIS system has conducted its own teaching, learning and assessment programs. The fact that they can appoint their own school leaders seems to be important as this process may be transparent and fair based on international best practices. NIS apply distributed leadership as their administration, governance, management and leadership approaches are guided by teamwork, which allows for the attainment of their vision and mission and accomplishes their strategic goals. However, there seems to be a concern regarding the funding, which is higher than in the rest of the school, causing funding inequity.

Some of the challenges that make school leadership in Kazakhstan more complex include, among others:

• School comprehensiveness: the schools include all stages of schooling from primary to higher secondary schools.

• School size and location pose another challenge as most schools are situated in the rural parts of Kazakhstan – areas that lack proper infrastructure, communication and technology.

• The language of instruction has been debated all over the country. With the trilingual education policy implementation, schools must teach different subjects in different languages, i.e. English, Kazakh and Russian.

In their work, Yakavets et al. (2017) highlight the impact of reforms on school leadership, and, therefore, aver that capacity-building strategies are necessary in transforming schooling and school leadership in a rapidly changing Kazakhstani educational context. According to Nurmukhanova (2020), the fact that 57% of schools are ungraded (i.e. schools that lack proper buildings and other resources) makes their leadership more complex and challenging as different levels of schooling are accommodated in the same school. Nurmukhanova (2020) believes that the comprehensiveness of schools in Kazakhstan requires a lot more experienced school leaders, and because of this, most schools' leadership and management have become a daunting task. The role of school leaders, according to Mukhtarova and Medeni (2013), includes, among others:

• maintaining educational compliance with norms and standards;

• managing financial resources;

• ensuring norms, rights and inculcating values in education.

While the leadership of schools in Kazakhstan at a superficial level seems good, Nurmukhanova (2020) laments some challenges and issues that are problematic, for instance, lack of collaboration by school management teams, stress-related issues and unequal distribution of roles, tasks and responsibilities among school co-leaders. Tajik et al. (2021) argue that the majority of Kazakhstani school principals and others in formal positions of leadership act more as administrators and managers than as leaders. These authors have further stated:

The principals, vice principals, and subject coordinators focused heavily on daily routines, implementing tasks, maintaining discipline, ensuring accountability, and executing technical and operational plans. A teacher interviewed stated that the school leaders hardly focus on setting long-term goals and developing a strategic plan. They are good at managing people and getting things done on [a] daily basis, but that does not inspire a big change. Other participants explained that some of the principals had received their education in the Soviet era and, therefore, were conditioned to “employ structured management with clearly defined roles for everyone, supervision of staff, occasional inspection of teachers' lessons, strict compliance with rules and policies, and emphasis more on results than on processes” (pp. 10–11).

The nature of school leadership in Kazakhstan has its roots in the bureaucratic and rigid format of the past Soviet system. Qanay and Frost (2020) postulate that the transformation of leadership in schools from that of hierarchical nature to that of non-positional leadership may explore the talents of the general teacher population in order to improve the general performances of schools in Kazakhstan.

According to the OECD report (2015b), the school leadership in Kazakhstan is hierarchical and not distributed. The distribution is done formally, but powers are centred in the hands of the school principal. The report also states that the training of school leaders is almost non-existent. While Kazakhstan has a robust external school and teacher evaluation (also called attestation), the emphasis seems to be on accountability and salary rather than on quality teaching (OECD, 2015b).

Lessons From the Review

In this review, there seems to be an agreement about the critical dimensions of effective school leadership. The conceptualization of school leadership seems to be centred on the school leader's development of the vision and mission (Makoelle, 2011). The ability of the school leader to outline the critical values that may mobilize the talent of all teachers, including the school core leaders, sounds very important for effective school leadership (Bush, 2003). This review of available literature on school leadership reveals that clear roles and responsibilities entrusted to school leaders ensure effective school leadership. An effective school leadership is strongly associated with effective instruction within an inclusive teaching and learning environment. These may impact immensely on the academic performances of students. The ethos and school culture are promoted through efficient and impactful school leadership. This review suggests that effective school leadership should be, from time to time, enhanced. As a result, professional development is crucial for promoting effective school leadership.

In this review, it became evident that setting standards for school leaders was critical in determining the expectations of leaders and school leadership roles and responsibilities (Pont et al., 2008). Kazakhstan would have to determine such standards in order to illuminate expectations regarding effective school leadership. It is evident from other European countries that school autonomy and distributed leadership are important for school leadership (Pont et al., 2008). Therefore, other than NIS, Kazakhstani schools might benefit from such decentralization of powers and accord schools to operate independently. It is clear from the review that transformational, instructional and distributed leadership are at the heart of effective school leadership (Litz & Blaik-Hourani, 2020; Ngang, 2011; Quin et al., 2015; Yang, 2014).

While NIS have developed distributive and team-based leadership approaches, it could be helpful if such leadership practices could be extrapolated to other schools, particularly rural and ungraded schools. According to Pont et al. (2008), teacher leadership is critical for effective school leadership. The notion of teacher leadership in Kazakhstan seems to be affected by too much-centralized power in the hands of the school leader (principal). Therefore, a distributive approach could go a long way in encouraging teamwork and collaboration. As Qanay and Frost (2020) postulate, training teacher leaders and school leaders must move from positional to non-positional leadership to stimulate innovative, collaborative and distributive leadership. The comprehensiveness of school, i.e. multi-level, increases the complexity of the school leadership demands (Nurmukhanova, 2020). It looks as though it would be prudent to separate the primary level schooling from the secondary level.

Conclusion

This chapter has attempted to conceptualize the notion of school leadership. The conceptualization of school leadership seems to be context-dependent. However, some elements of it are common across different countries. It is clear from this chapter that two views about school leadership exist, i.e. bureaucratic and centralized school leadership, as opposed to decentralized and distributive school leadership. Apparently, Kazakhstani school leadership context is caught between the two kinds of leadership approaches. The indication is that moving towards decentralized and distributive school leadership in Kazakhstani schools could be beneficial. This chapter has articulated some of the attributes of an effective school leadership practice from the international and Kazakhstani context. The setting of standards, clarifying the role of school leaders, and their in-service and pre-service preparations seem to be some of the aspects that are significant in enhancing school leadership.

While this chapter may not account for all reforms in the Kazakhstani school leadership terrain, it lays the basis for discussions about how school leadership in this rapidly changing education landscape could be enhanced, enacted and understood. It must be borne in mind that when this chapter was written, many changes could have been initiated and implemented by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Therefore, this chapter contributes to the ongoing debate about school leadership in Kazakhstan. As a result, it seems as though there is a need for a clearer policy on principals' recruitment and restructuring of principals' remuneration, incentives and benefits. It would be prudent to assess the training needs of school leaders and determine how some powers could be devolved at the school level to ensure some autonomy in areas such as curriculum management and financial management.