Language and Education in
Post-Soviet Kazakhstan:
Kazakh-Medium Instruction
in Urban Schools
WILLIAM FIERMAN
F
rom the decline of korenizatsiia (indigenization) in the 1930s until the late 1980s, the
Communist party (CPSU) actively promoted the Russian language as a common bond
uniting the multiethnic “Soviet people.” As Isabelle Kreindler describes, the party
supported Russian not only as a common lingua franca, but also as a key component of a
common Soviet cultural foundation.1 In these capacities, Russian was assigned a central
role in fostering rapprochement (sblizhenie) of the many nationalities inhabiting the USSR.
According to official Soviet ideology, linguistic and other differences among nationalities
in the USSR would progressively weaken, and eventually lead to their merger (sliianie).
The political foundation for Soviet policies of sblizhenie and sliianie disappeared
with the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. In the wake of this collapse, the countries
which emerged—many with no histories as independent states—faced the urgent task of
developing a basis for common identity of their citizens. Among other things, this meant
articulation of policies relevant to transmitting cultures of the titular and other nationalities
through the educational system. A critical component of this was determining the respective
roles in the schools of the state language and Russian, as well as of other local minority
tongues. In all of the USSR’s non-Russian former republics, new policies fostered a
relative decline of Russian and a rise of the titular state language.
This article examines an aspect of the changing language balance in Kazakhstan,
the Soviet republic which upon independence had the smallest proportion of titular
nationality population. The study will focus on the language shift (from Russian to Kazakh)
as medium of primary and secondary school education in the very late Soviet period and
the years since independence. As in other former republics, the trends in language of
instruction reflect not only the directives of the leadership of the emerging state but also
1
Isabelle Kreindler, “Forging a Soviet People,” in Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation, ed. William
Fierman (Boulder, 1991), 219–31.
The Russian Review 65 (January 2006): 98–116
Copyright 2006 The Russian Review
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
99
broad economic, political, and social realities, as well as choices made by individual
families. We will concentrate on urban schools. The reasons for this are that in the late
Soviet era a high proportion of Kazakh rural pupils were already studying in the Kazakh
medium. Moreover, unlike in urban areas, most rural Kazakh children lived in an
environment where even without Kazakh-medium education, they learned Kazakh through
frequent contact with other Kazakh speakers. Finally, urban areas are especially important
because cultural and educational elites, as well as the institutions where they work, are
concentrated there.
Before turning to the specifics of the Kazakh case, we should note that the language
of school instruction was a major concern of many “informal” groups and national fronts
that emerged in the late Soviet era throughout the USSR, and that the changes in the area
of language policy under Gorbachev reflected the rapid shifts in the Soviet political system
itself. In response to pressure from below, republic government and party leaders adopted
policies supported by local populations. In the case of language, this was first apparent in
the Baltic region, where in 1988 republic government bodies openly challenged Moscow
by support of assertive platforms. In 1989, Moscow had little choice but to accede to
adoption of language laws in most union republics.2
The events of the late Soviet era suggest that the link between territory and language—
rooted in Stalin’s definition of a nation—was very widely accepted in the USSR. That is,
each nation, besides being united by a common economy and psychological make-up as
manifest in a community of culture, was also said to share a common territory and language.
Consequently, as the Soviet Union collapsed, citizens had good reason to expect that the
titular nationality in each of the Soviet republics (and later, ex-republics) would promote
its own language on “its own” territory.3 This was often viewed with unease by Russians
and other nontitular ethnic minorities, who generally did not have a good knowledge of
the state language of the republic they inhabited.
Kazakh nationalists greeted the loosening of Moscow’s political control and the
collapse of the USSR as an opportunity to promote Kazakh language and culture in
Kazakhstan with less interference from a distant center of political power. Kazakh
nationalist spokesmen often likened the restoration of territorial domain for the Kazakh
language to a physical reclaiming of their land. Thus, for example, the poet Temirkhan
Medetbekov wrote:
The Kazakh language space has receded more than the Aral Sea, and its
atmosphere has been more destroyed and polluted than a uranium production
site after a bomb blast. Expanding the domain is just as difficult as purifying
the atmosphere. This is because there are various social barriers, and moral and
2
Three republics’ constitutions already provided a special status for the titular nationality languages (Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia), so they did not adopt analogous new laws on language. Other than these republics, the
only one that did not pass a language law in 1989 was Turkmenistan, which did so in spring 1990.
3
No doubt influenced by what was happening in the Baltic, some Kazakh scholars were very quick to emphasize
the link between territory and language, stressing that Kazakh must have a special role in Kazakhstan. In early
1989, prominent Kazakh legal scholar and historian Sadyq Zimanov justified the idea of a state language by saying
that Lenin opposed forcing a population to learn a state language, but did not oppose the idea of a state language per
se. See S. Z. Zimanov, “Perestroika i ravnopravie iazykov,” Kazakhstanskaia pravda, March 23, 1989.
100
William Fierman
psychological barriers poisoned by haughtiness and power. They are like twisted
electrified barbed wire and metal rails that block tanks. In addition, our own
indifference and lack of concern make it difficult to expand the domain or purify
the atmosphere.4
Language trends in Kazakhstan, including the medium of instruction in Kazakhstan’s
urban schools from 1989 to the present, demonstrate that, unlike the Aral Sea, the domain
of the Kazakh language has considerably expanded. However, as we will see, many
factors—which Medetbekov would no doubt consider barriers—continue to constrain its
further expansion.
MAJOR BARRIERS TO RESTORATION OF KAZAKH
AT THE END OF THE SOVIET ERA
DEMOGRAPHY
Some of the key barriers to restoring Kazakh-medium education were inherited from the
Soviet era, while others are more a product of post-Soviet events. Demography is one of
the critical factors most obviously rooted in Soviet history. In this regard it is worth
noting that the CPSU touted the “internationalization” of Kazakhstan—whether achieved
through migration, intermarriage, or other means—as a very positive phenomenon that
was fostering the formation of a “Soviet people.”
Largely because of migration, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly all of
Kazakhstan’s oblast centers as well as other larger urban areas were inhabited primarily
by non-Kazakhs, especially Russians and other Slavs. With only two exceptions, Qyzylorda
and Atyrau, in 1989 Russians were the most numerous group in every one of Kazakhstan’s
seventeen oblast capitals. The picture was much the same in most other cities of the
republic.5 This was reflected in the 1989 census (See Table 1), according to which only
27.1 percent of Kazakhstan’s urban population was Kazakh, while 50.8 percent was
Russian. The only other nationalities exceeding 2 percent of the remaining 22 percent of
the urban population were Ukrainians (6.2), Germans (5.0), and Tatars (2.7 percent).6
TABLE 1 Kazakhstan Urban Population in 1989 by Ethnic Group
Kazakhs
Russians
Ukrainians
Germans
Tatars
Others
27.1%
50.8%
6.2%
5.0%
2.7%
8.1%
ARK, Natsional'nyi sostav 4:1 (Almaty, 2000), 6–11.
Temirkhan Medetbekov, “Oz tilinen ketkening, oz tubine zhetkening,” Leninshil zhas, August 9, 1990.
Makash Tatimov, Khalyqnama nemese san men sana (Almaty, 1992), 148–58.
6
Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po statistike (ARK), Itogi perepisi naseleniia 1999 goda v Respublike
Kazazhstan. Natsional'nyi sostav naseleniia Respubliki Kazakhstan, vol. 4, pt. 1, Naselenie Respubliki
Kazakhstana po natsional'nostiam, polu, i vozrastu (Almaty, 2000), 6–11.
4
5
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
101
With the exception of a few cities, demography discouraged establishment of Kazakh
schools because Kazakhs constituted only a fairly small share of the pupils in a particular
neighborhood. Non-Kazakh children were extraordinarily unlikely to attend a Kazakhmedium school. This is reflected, for example, in the fact that in the 1989 census, less
than 1 percent of urban Kazakhs claimed fluency in the Kazakh language.
LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL ASSIMILATION OF KAZAKHS IN THE SOVIET ERA
The demographic factor as an impediment to Kazakh schools was reinforced by the equally
formidable barrier referred to in passing above, the very prominent place of Russian in
Kazakhs’ linguistic repertoires. According to the 1989 census, 64.2 percent of Kazakhstan’s
Kazakhs claimed fluency in Russian. This is in stark contrast to analogous figures among
titular nationalities in other republics of the region—37.3 percent in Kyrgyzstan, 30.5
percent in Tajikistan, 28.3 percent in Turkmenistan, and 22.7 percent in Uzbekistan.7
Data for urban areas alone show that 77.8 percent of Kazakhs in Kazakhstan claimed
fluency in Russian, meaning that only 22.2 percent did not. At the other end of the
Central Asian spectrum was Uzbekistan, where 56.8 percent of urban Uzbeks did not
claim Russian fluency.
Largely as a result of the demographic and linguistic factors just described, a much
larger proportion of the Kazakhstan’s urban population was fluent in Russian than in
Kazakh. At the end of the Soviet era, over 80 percent—and quite possibly over 90 percent—
of Kazakhstan’s total urban population was literate in Russian. In contrast, even though
Kazakh had been declared Kazakhstan’s single “state language,” the share literate in
Kazakh was probably no higher than 10–15 percent.8 Indeed, in the late 1980s, even
among adult urban ethnic Kazakhs, most had graduated from schools where Russian was
the sole medium of instruction, and their children were following in their parents’ paths.
A corollary of the above is that many urban Kazakhs were culturally russified. For
them, not just the language, but the culture of Moscow and Leningrad (today St. Petersburg),
not to mention Siberia, were much closer than the culture of the rural traditional Kazakh
7
“Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleneiia 1989 goda,” Vestnik statistiki, 1990, no. 11:77, no. 12:70, and 1991, no.
4:76, no. 5:74, and no. 6:72. Although there are slight differences between data in the published All-Union 1989
census data and those cited for 1989 in the Kazakhstan 1999 published census data, I have taken these statistics
from Vestnik statistiki. The reason is that the 1999 Kazakhstan census results do not provide data on Russian
language fluency for 1989. The data for Russian fluency, especially in the Uzbek case, may reflect some “fixing”
of the numbers. Nevertheless, the general pattern of a higher share of fluency by Kazakhs than other Central Asian
nationalities is no doubt valid. On evidence of falsification of census data on Russian-language fluency see Robert
J. Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism and Russia in the USSR (Princeton, 1994), 288–89. Concerning variance
between the Soviet 1989 census data published in Moscow and those subsequently cited in the 1999
Kazakhstan census see Kapitan (chitatel'-kommentator), “Ofitsial'naia demografiia: Komu verit'?” Internetgazeta Navigator Kazakhstan, June 29, 2005, http://www.navi.kz/articles 4print.php?artid=9153&sid=
44f79ac059468371cefacbb5d36c4c36 (accessed June 30, 2005).
8
The share of Kazakh literacy among the total population (urban and rural of all nationalities) was probably
under 35 percent. This estimate is based on the fact that Kazakhs comprised around 40 percent of the total population,
and on the assumptions that no more than 80 percent of Kazakhs were literate in the language, and very few nonKazakhs could read or write it. The calculation of literacy in urban areas assumes that less than half of urban
Kazakhs (total about 27 percent of urban population) could read or write Kazakh.
102
William Fierman
areas of their own country. Moreover, they had grown up viewing linguistic and cultural
russification as valuable assets for upward educational and social mobility. Consequently,
they often looked down on the culture and language of their rural co-ethnics. This is a
major reason why many urban Kazakhs were ambivalent about cultural and linguistic
“kazakhization,” which they often viewed as placing considerable power in the hands of
their less educated and less urbane country cousins.
THE MIXED SCHOOL
One final barrier to promotion of Kazakh language as a medium of education warrants
particular attention here. This is the “mixed school,” an institution with groups of pupils
studying in different mediums of instruction. Though much more common today than in
the 1980s, such schools were not rare in Kazakhstan cities of the 1980s, either. In this
article we will juxtapose the “mixed school” (where different groups of pupils receive
instruction through different mediums of instruction) to the “pure school” (where all
pupils receive instruction through the same medium). The vast majority of pure schools
offer instruction exclusively through either Kazakh-medium classes (KMCs) or Russianmedium classes (RMCs). Most mixed schools have both KMCs and RMCs, though some
may combine one or both with classes taught in another language, usually Uzbek, Uyghur,
or Tajik.9
The mixed urban school, whose numbers grew from 242 in 1988 to 723 in 2004, is
a sign of both the difficulties and success in expanding Kazakh-medium education in
urban areas.10 Inasmuch as most of the shift to mixed schools involved the conversion of
formerly pure RMC schools to mixed schools through the opening of KMCs in them, this
marked an advance for Kazakh-medium instruction. On the other hand, many Kazakhs
view the mixed school as a problem, primarily because much or all of the communication
9
The number of pupils studying in languages other than Kazakh and Russian is under 4 percent; the share is
approximately the same both in urban and in rural schools. Pure schools in languages other than Kazakh or Russian
are very few. In 2003, for example, they accounted for less than 2 percent of all pure schools; most of these were
Uzbek. It is unclear whether any mixed schools exist with neither KMCs nor RMCs; if so, they are extremely rare
and limited to South Kazakhstan Oblast. Unpublished educational data cited in this article for years between 1988
and 1999 were provided to the author by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education. (The ministry responsible for
education in Kazakhstan has undergone several changes in terms of its scope, and these were reflected in changes in
name of the ministry. Though technically inaccurate, for the sake of simplicity throughout the text, I refer simply to
the “Ministry of Education” and the minister in charge as the “Minister of Education.”) Unless otherwise indicated
in the text, for years beginning with 2000-2001, school data have been taken from those published by the Kazakhstan
Agency on Statistics (ARK), Seriia 14: Sotsial'naia sfera, Raspredelenie chisla dnevnykh i obshcheobrazovatel'nykh
shkol i chislennosti uchashchikhsia po iazykam obucheniia v Respublike Kazakhstan. I have utilized the annual
publication for the five years beginning with the 2000/2001 school year. The last part of the titles of these publications
for the first four years (in electronic format) are, respectively, na nachalo 2000/2001 uchebnogo goda; na nachalo
2001/2002 uchebnogo goda; na nachalo 2002/2003 uchebnogo goda; and na nachalo 2003/2004 uchebnogo
goda. The electronic version for 2003/2004 lacks a title page, but the title presumably ends with “na nachalo
2004/2005 uchebnogo goda.” References to these publications in text and tables will be abbreviated ARK,
Raspredelenie shkol i chislennosti uchashchikhsia v RK. Data on the small number of non-Kazakh and nonRussian schools can be gleaned from the 2003/2004 report (pp. 7, 53).
10
Academic years are noted by the year in which they began. Thus, academic year 2004–5 is referred to here as
“academic year 2004.”
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
103
of urban KMC pupils outside the classroom takes place not in Kazakh, but Russian. A
large proportion of the student body in RMCs of many urban schools is non-Kazakh and/
or has weak Kazakh-language skills. The level of Kazakh skills of many administrators
and teachers of the RMCs in these schools is also very low, whereas it is likely that almost
all of them are fluent in Russian. The problem, however, is not just the pupils and staff in
the RMCs. Even many KMC pupils communicate with each other outside of class time in
Russian.11
A number of prominent Kazakhs see elimination of the mixed school as a major part
of the solution to the problem of the Russian linguistic environment. Among the most
important supporters of this idea have been two recent ministers of education, Shamsha
Berkimbaeva and Zhaqsybek Kulekeev.12 They have advocated improving the Kazakh
language environment for Kazakh children by separating mixed schools into their
respective language-medium components, and establishing separate institutions. This
might be accomplished by building new schools, but it also might be achieved by converting
two nearby mixed schools with Kazakh- and Russian-medium instruction into pure schools,
one with each of these languages of instruction. Not surprisingly, the proponents of the
separation of schools also favor encouraging Kazakh families to educate their children in
Kazakh.13
Some justification for separating schools in this way in order to increase the use of
Kazakh can be found in statements by Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev, who has stressed
that Kazakhs should not demand that members of other ethnic groups speak Kazakh until
they use it themselves. Thus, segregating KMCs from RMCs by eliminating mixed schools
can be seen as a way to create greater opportunities for Kazakh children to speak with one
another in Kazakh.
Isolating KMCs from RMCs may indeed provide a better environment to learn the
Kazakh language. However, without a large and effective investment in Kazakh-language
education, and without other measures to raise the benefits and prestige of knowing Kazakh
in public life, the linguistic segregation could well have serious undesirable consequences,
in particular creating greater social tension.
We will return to this topic later in this article. For now, though, it is sufficient to
recall that many urban Kazakhs are less than enthusiastic about kazakhization. As we
will illustrate below, many of them (and probably a large share of the better educated) still
prefer Russian-medium education for their children. Given the current factors affecting
choice of language of education discussed below, the more segregated pure KMC may
appeal to the parents whose children attend RMCs today less than the current mixed
school. It seems likely that segregated, pure schools are especially likely to have a more
For examples of the argument that mixed schools are a problem and should be replaced by pure Kazakh schools
see Daulet Seysenuly, “Qazaq mektebi qashanghy qagys qala beredi?” Egemen Qazaqstan, July 3, 2001; and
Qamalkhan Quanuly, “Aralas mektep omir talabyna say emes,” Ana tili, October 2, 2003.
12
Berkimbayeva was minister of education from January 2002 until June 2003; Kulekeev served from June
2003 until December 2004, when he was replaced by Birganim Aytimova. To the best of my knowledge, Minister
Aytimova has not yet addressed the question of the mixed school.
13
For Berkimbaev’s comments see Shamsha Berkimbaeva, “Bolashaq — mektepten bastalady,” Qazaqstan
mektebi (February 2003): 15. For Kulekeev’s comments see the summary of his speech in Egemen Qazaqstan,
October 1, 2003.
11
104
William Fierman
nationalized curriculum, with greater emphasis on Kazakh culture, history, and so on.
This seems more likely to appeal to new migrants from the village, who are uncomfortable
in the more russified cities, than to the second- and third-generation Kazakhs, who are
quite accustomed to the “cosmopolitan” atmosphere. Indeed, when forced to make a
choice between a pure RMC school and a pure KMC school, even some parents whose
children attend KMCs in mixed schools might choose the former.
LEGACY OF THE GORBACHEV ERA
As we begin to consider the shift in medium of education in Kazakhstan’s schools, it is
important to note the two most important political documents that provided political
underpinning for these changes. The first document is a 1987 republic party and
government decree promising to make it easier for Kazakh pupils in Kazakhstan to learn
the Kazakh language in schools. This decree’s adoption was remarkable because it marked
the first time in many years that the party had adopted a measure to raise the status of
Kazakh language. The decree was also notable because it was promulgated within months
after disturbances that broke out when long-serving Kazakhstan Communist party First
Secretary D. Kunaev (an ethnic Kazakh) was removed from his post in December 1986;
his successor was an ethnic Russian with no ties to the republic. Among other things, the
decree “On Improving the Study of the Kazakh Language in the Republic” appears to
have been a measure to soothe wounded Kazakh pride.
The second document is Kazakhstan’s language law, which was adopted in the 1989
parade of language legislation referred to above. This piece of legislation, largely modeled
after laws designed in other republics, went much further than the 1987 decree in promising
greater use of Kazakh in education. Although it guaranteed the right to education not
only in Kazakh but also in Russian and other languages as well, the real change was the
promise of education in Kazakh in educational institutions at all levels. Access to education
in Russian, of course, had not been a problem in Kazakhstan in recent decades. The new
law also made Kazakh, along with Russian, obligatory subjects at all levels of education.
Russian, of course, had been obligatory for decades, so in this area, too, the innovation
was the increased attention to Kazakh.14
The adoption of both of these documents should be seen in the context of the rapidly
changing political dynamics in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev which opened the door
to party approval of non-Russians’ exhibiting greater pride in their own national languages
and cultures. Party doctrine became increasingly tolerant of such pride, conceding that
respect for non-Russian languages and cultures was compatible with Soviet patriotism.
Even though it had the party’s blessing, Kazakhstan’s language law was extremely
ambitious. Due to the factors described above, the chasm between what the law mandated
and reality on the ground was arguably greater in Kazakhstan than any other republic.
As would become clear in the ensuing years, providing a high-quality education in the
14
See William Fierman “Language and Identity in Kazakhstan: Formulations in Policy Documents, 1987–1997,”
Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30, no. 2 (1998): 171–86. “Language and Identity” also analyzes another
important document, Kazakhstan’s second language law, which was adopted in 1997.
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
105
near future in Kazakh was a much more complex and difficult task than doing so in such
languages as Estonian or Georgian. The reasons had much to do with the fact that these
latter languages had a much more developed vocabulary in many fields than Kazakh, and
that because they were already being used in public urban life and higher education, they
also had the requisite textbooks and teaching cadre that Kazakh lacked.
If carried out fully, the 1987 decree and the 1989 law would have satisfied many of
the ambitions of Kazakh nationalists in the area of language. However, the foundation
for implementing these measures was absent. In fact, at the end of the Soviet era there
was little to suggest that in the area of education—or any other area of public life in
Kazakhstan—Russian would lose its dominant role to Kazakh, which only about one in
three inhabitants could write.
As a first step in tracing the change in language medium of education in Kazakhstan,
let us look at the share of pure KMC and RMC schools as well as mixed schools in the
late Soviet era. As Table 2 shows, in 1988, 52.4 percent of Kazakhstan’s schools were
pure RMC schools. This was substantially more than the share of pure KMC schools
(only 31.9 percent); at the time, only 14.6 percent of all schools were mixed. The proportion
of mixed schools was quite similar in urban and rural areas—15.1 percent and
14.5 percent, respectively. However, whereas 72.7 percent of urban schools were pure
RMC institutions and only 11.3 were pure KMC institutions, in rural areas pure RMC
schools comprised 47.3 percent of the total, with pure KMC schools comprising
37.1 percent. The proportion of pure KMC schools was very uneven in urban areas
around the country. In most oblasts, fewer than 10 percent of the urban schools were
entirely Kazakh. In Qyzylorda Oblast’s urban areas, however, about half of the schools
offered instruction only in the titular language.
TABLE 2 Schools in Kazakhstan by language in academic year 1988–89
Type of School
All areas
Urban areas only
Pure Russian
Pure Kazakh
Mixed
52.4%
31.9%
14.6%
72.7%
11.3%
15.1%
Rural areas only
47.3%
37.1%
14.5%
Unpublished data, provided by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education. The small number of schools unaccounted
for were pure schools in other languages.
This same kind of heterogeneity was reflected in the proportion of urban children
studying in KMCs. Statistics are not available for 1988–89, but in 1990–91 almost
64 percent of pupils studying in urban areas of Qyzylorda Oblast were in KMCs; yet in
about half of the remaining oblasts, the figure was under 10 percent.
To better understand the context of Kazakh-medium education in the late Soviet era,
it is worth noting that even as a subject in the curriculum (rather than medium of
instruction), the status of the Kazakh language was very low. Kazakh was generally not
a mandatory subject in RMCs, and where it was taught, it was usually not taken seriously.
The textbooks and methodology were very poor, and failure to learn Kazakh had little
effect in terms of future educational or professional opportunities. In any case, the results
of teaching Kazakh in RMCs to Russians, Kazakhs, or anyone else in the late Soviet era
106
William Fierman
were at best very modest, and consequently many urban ethnic Kazakh children whose
parents preferred to use Russian at home grew up in the 1970s and 1980s with little to no
knowledge of “their own” language.
Kazakhstan’s sudden independence in 1991 brought change by stimulating high
hopes for “kazakhizers”; however, it failed to produce a radical change in a number of
important factors affecting language of education. True, independence placed greater
power in the hands of the local political leaders, whose legitimacy in the eyes of many
Kazakhs derived in part from promises to reverse Soviet russification policies. However,
many other Kazakhs opposed rapid linguistic kazakhization. Moreover, as we will see
below, many practical issues constrained efforts to implement sweeping change with regard
to medium of instruction.
KAZAKH-LANGUAGE URBAN EDUCATION:
DYNAMICS IN INDEPENDENT KAZAKHSTAN
As Table 3 below shows, the share of KMC pupils in the total Kazakhstan school enrollment
(all nationalities combined) has been increasing since the late Soviet era. This is true
both in urban as well as rural areas. As we see, taking the total student body of all
nationalities enrolled in Kazakhstan’s schools in both urban and rural areas together, the
share studying in KMCs has jumped from around 30 percent in 1988 to 56 percent in
2004. Taking urban areas alone, we see that in 2004, over 46 percent of pupils enrolled
were in KMCs. This is nearly triple the share of urban school enrollments in 1990.
TABLE 3 KMC Share of Republic Urban and Total Enrollment
Year
KMC as Share of
COMBINED
(urban + rural)
enrollment
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
30.2%
30.2%
32.4%
34.1%
37.0%
40.0%
42.7%
44.8%
49.5%
N.A.
52.1%
53.2%
54.4%
55.3%
56.0%
KMC as Share of
Republic URBAN
enrollment
N.A.
N.A.
16.9%
18.0%
20.0%
24.2%
27.3%
30.4%
37.3%
N.A.
40.5%
42.8%
44.4%
45.6%
46.4%
KMC as Share of
Republic RURAL
enrollment
N.A.
N.A.
46.6%
48.9%
52.1%
54.2%
56.5%
58.0%
62.1%
N.A.
64.0%
64.8%
65.8%
66.3%
66.8%
Unpublished data, provided by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and ARK, Raspredelenie shkol i chislennosti
uchashchikhsia v RK for years 2000/2001, 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004, and 2004/2005.
As we will explore in greater detail below, much of the change in KMC share of
enrollment is related to the growing share of Kazakhs in Kazakhstan’s population, both
in rural and urban areas. However, it is important to note that the change is not merely a
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
107
function of demographic change. As Table 4 illustrates, the share of ethnic Kazakh pupils
attending KMCs rather than RMCs has greatly increased in Kazakhstan, from about
66 percent to about 80 percent.15 That rise was especially rapid in the early 1990s. As a
result, the proportion of ethnic Kazakh children receiving their education in RMCs declined
from about 34 to about 20 percent between 1990 and 1995. Equally important for our
study here, however, is that in the eight years following 1995, the level did not change
significantly. Thus, in 2003, the proportion of ethnic Kazakh pupils studying in KMCs
was still about 80 percent. This means that the remaining 20 percent were still in RMCs.16
TABLE 4 KMC and RMC Shares of Ethnic Kazakh School Enrollment
Rural and Urban Combined
Urban Only
Rural Only
Year
KMC
RMC
KMC
RMC
KMC
RMC
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1998
1999
2003
66.1%
67.2%
71.7%
76.1%
78.0%
80.2%
80.8%
81.3%
ca. 80%
33.9%
32.8%
29.3%
23.9%
22.0%
19.8%
19.2%
18.7%
ca. 20%
51.4%
53.5%
61.3%
65.4%
68.1%
71.9%
72.6%
72.5%
48.6%
46.5%
38.7%
34.6%
31.9%
28.1%
27.4%
27.5%
73.0%
73.7%
76.5%
81.4%
83.2%
84.9%
87.0%
88.4%
27.0%
26.3%
23.5%
18.6%
16.8%
15.1%
13.0%
11.6%
Calculation for 1990–99 are based on unpublished data provided by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education. The figure for 2003 was
provided in a speech by Minister of Education Kulekeev, Egemen Qazaqstan, October 1, 2003.
We will turn shortly to look more closely at the situation in urban areas. Before
doing that, let us take note of the change in the medium of education for ethnic Kazakh in
rural areas. As Table 4 shows, already in 1990, 73.0 percent of rural Kazakh pupils were
studying in KMCs; by 1995, the analogous figure had almost reached 85 percent, and in
1999 exceeded 88 percent. It is hard to tell why the remaining approximately 12 percent
continued to study in RMCs. Presumably some of the reasons are similar to those we will
explore in the case of urban schools. In any case, however, it is clear that by the mid1990s the overwhelming majority of rural Kazakh children were in KMCs. The dominance
of Kazakh language in rural areas that this supports is especially great, since even among
Kazakh RMC pupils, few lack Kazakh language skills.
There are, of course, many Slavic and other non-Kazakh pupils living in rural areas
where few Kazakhs live, especially in northern and central areas of Kazakhstan. It is
very possible that such children will not soon learn the titular nationality’s language;
nevertheless, by and large, the dominant position of the Kazakh language in rural education
15
The share of Kazakh pupils in KMCs is calculated by dividing the number of KMC pupils by the total number
of ethnic Kazakh pupils. This slightly overstates the proportion of Kazakh pupils in KMCs, since there is a very
small (but growing) number of non-Kazakhs attending KMCs.
16
Data for 2003 are from a speech by Minister of Education Zhaqsybek Kulekeev, Egemen Qazaqstan, October
1, 2003. Kulekeev appears to slightly misstate the case about the timing of the growth. He says that the growth in
the most recent decade (that is, from 1992–93 to 2002–2003) was from 60 percent to 80 percent. The data I have
from the Ministry, however, purport that in 1992–93 the KMC share was already 72 percent, up from 63 percent in
1988–89. It is worth noting that some Kazakh nationalists believe that Kazakh parents in Kazakhstan should be
obliged to send their children to KMCs. For an example of this kind of argument see the article by historian
Tolemish Absalimuly, “Til tangdau—oktemdikting zangdastyryluy,” Ana tili, September 26, 2002.
108
William Fierman
and rural public life more generally is very unlikely to be challenged in the foreseeable
future.
The data in Table 4 show that the share of urban Kazakh children studying in KMCs
expanded rapidly between 1990 and 1995. Moreover, taking into account that the
proportion of all Kazakhstan pupils in KMCs (urban and rural combined) increased
between 1989 and 1990 (Table 3 above), the trend for urban schools seems to extend at
least from 1989 through about 1995. Beyond that, however, the momentum appears to
have slowed considerably. Unfortunately, I have been unable to obtain data for Kazakh
nationality pupils beyond 1999, but the figure of 80 percent for the share of Kazakh
pupils studying in KMCs in 2003 (cited in a speech by Minister of Education Kulekeev)
suggests that the share of Kazakh pupils in RMCs has remained fairly steady for the last
decade. The lack of data broken down for rural and urban areas complicates our task.
However, given Kulekeev’s statement that the share of Kazakh children in KMCs for
rural and urban areas combined was still around 80 percent in 2004, it would seem that
the urban and rural shares respectively of Kazakh RMC pupils had probably also not
changed much from 1999. If this is true, then the share of urban Kazakh pupils in RMCs
in 2004 was likely still close to the 1999 figure of 27.5 percent. It is worth recalling here
that, outside of school, urban RMC children are likely to hear much less Kazakh than
their rural counterparts. Given that the teaching of Kazakh language as a subject in
RMCs appears to have made only modest achievements to date, the large share of Kazakhs
in urban RMCs poses a serious obstacle to teaching Kazakh to a substantial share of
urban Kazakh children, that is, the share who continue to attend RMCs.
TABLE 5 Proportion of KMC, Mixed, and RMC Schools
Year
Pure KMC Schools
Mixed Schools
Pure RMC Schools
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
11.0%
12.0%
16.0%
15.0%
17.0%
18.0%
20.0%
21.0%
N.A.
N.A.
24.2%
24.9%
24.4%
26.4%
26.9%
26.9%
27.6%
15.0%
20.0%
24.0%
27.0%
31.0%
34.0%
36.0%
36.0%
N.A.
N.A.
33.0%
34.2%
34.4%
34.7%
35.1%
35.8%
35.4%
73.0%
67.0%
59.0%
58.0%
51.0%
46.0%
43.0%
43.0%
N.A.
N.A.
41.8%
39.8%
40.4%
38.1%
37.2%
36.4%
36.0%
Unpublished data, provided by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and ARK, Raspredelenie shkol i chislennosti
uchashchikhsia v RK for years 2000/2001, 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004, and 2004/2005. See footnote 9
concerning schools with instruction in a medium other than Russian or Kazakh.
Beyond this, however, given the objections that KMC pupils in mixed institutions
are nevertheless also in a largely Russian linguistic and cultural context, it is important to
look at trends in the types of schools (pure and mixed) operating in Kazakhstan and the
number of KMC pupils in each of them. As we see in Table 5, although there has been a
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
109
dramatic increase in the proportion of the pure KMC schools in Kazakhstan, and a
precipitous decline in pure RMC urban schools, the share of mixed schools, which had
more than doubled from 1988 to 1994, has not significantly changed in the subsequent
decade.
The picture becomes even clearer when viewed in combination with data in Table 6,
which shows that although the total number of urban KMC pupils between 2000 and
2004 increased from 664,630 to 712,079, the share of KMC urban pupils in mixed schools
has remained fairly steady, and their number in 2004 (280,742) was higher than their
number in 2000 (271,190). If our assumption above is correct—that 25–30 percent of
TABLE 6 Distribution of KMC Urban Pupils among Pure and Mixed Schools
Year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Total Number of
KMC Pupils in
Urban Areas
664,630
688,723
725,722
728,848
712,079
Number of KMC
Pupils in Urban
Pure Schools
393,440
409,865
431,784
431,786
431,337
59.2%
59.5%
59.5%
59.2%
60.6%
271,190
278,858
293,938
297,062
280,742
40.8%
40.5%
40.5%
40.8%
39.4%
as % of all urban
KMC pupils
Number of KMC
Pupils in Urban
Mixed Schools
as % of all urban
KMC pupils
ARK, Raspredelenie shkol i chislennosti uchashchikhsia v RK for years 2000/2001, 2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004, and 2004/2005.
Kazakh urban pupils attend RMCs—then it would appear that only a third or less of
Kazakh urban pupils are enrolled in pure KMC schools. (This follows from adding the
25–30 percent in RMCs to the 40 percent in KMCs in mixed schools, thus leaving only
30–35 percent for pure KMCs). This means that two-thirds of urban pupils are in linguistic
environments that the two ministers of education cited above would like to change.
DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AND THE DYNAMICS
OF URBAN KAZAKH-LANGUAGE EDUCATION
Let us now turn to the factors behind the expansion of KMCs described above. Some of
the most important reasons are demographic. Kazakhstan, including its cities, is today
much more ethnically Kazakh than it was at the end of the late Soviet period. According
to officially published data shown in Table 7, the share of Russians in the population
declined from 37.4 percent in 1989 to 27.2 percent in 2004. In the same period, the
Kazakh population grew from 40.1 percent to 57.2 percent. If we set aside the “other
nationalities” (whose share declined from 22.5 percent to 15.6 percent during this period),
it means that in the course of fifteen years, the ratio of Kazakhs to Russians shifted from
about 1:1 to about 2.1:1. In other words, whereas in 1989 there was slightly more than
110
William Fierman
one Kazakh for every Russian, by 2004 Kazakhs outnumbered Russians by more than two
to one.17 It seems certain that this trajectory will continue for the foreseeable future. Of
the babies born in Kazakhstan in 2003, over 67 percent were born to Kazakh mothers,
whereas as under 17 percent were born to Russian mothers. This means that Kazakh
mothers gave birth to approximately four times as many babies as Russian mothers.18
TABLE 7 Kazakh and Russian Proportions of Kazakhstan Population
URBAN AND RURAL POPULATION
COMBINED
1989
1999
2004
URBAN POPULATION
RURAL POPULATION
Kazakh
Russian
Ratio
Kazakh
Russian
Ratio
Kazakh
Russian
Ratio
40.1%
53.4%
57.2%
37.4%
30.0%
27.2%
1.1:1
1.8:1
2.1:1
27.1%
43.2%
48.5%
50.8%
41.1%
37.0%
1:1.9
1:1
1.3:1
57.1%
66.4%
68.6%
19.9 %
15.8 %
14.4%
2.9:1
4.2:1
4.8:1
ARK, Natsional'nyi sostav naseleniia RK 4:1:6–11; ARK, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Kazakhstana: Statisticheskii sbornik (Almaty,
2005), 18.
In rural areas during this period, Kazakhs consolidated an already superior
demographic position, growing from 57.1 percent of the population in 1989 to 68.6 percent
fifteen years later. While this change in the ratio of rural Kazakhs to Russians from 2.9:1
to 4.8:1 is significant, it is much less dramatic than the scale of shift in urban areas. As
noted above, in 1989 Russians and Kazakhs accounted for 50.8 and 27.1 percent
respectively of the urban population. In 2004 the analogous figures were 37.0 and
48.5 percent. This means that whereas in 1989 there were almost two Russians for every
Kazakh in urban areas of Kazakhstan, in 2004 the Kazakhs outnumbered Russians in
Kazakhstan cities about 1.3:1. Thus, from outnumbering the Kazakhs almost 2:1 in
urban areas, in a decade the share of Russians fell below the Kazakh share.
What is behind the demographic shift? Part of the explanation is the differential in
natural growth among Kazakhstan’s major ethnic groups. In 1996, for example, the
natural growth rate among Kazakhstan’s Kazakhs was 13.5 percent, whereas for Russians
it was -4.9.19 Moreover, the Russian population is older than the Kazakh population, and
so it has a higher death rate.
The most important factor for the demographic shift in Kazakhstan’s cities, however,
is not natural, but mechanical. There has been a large emigration of population from
Kazakhstan, predominantly Slavs and Germans. (Kazakhs have also emigrated, but the
balance of Kazakh migration has been positive.) Not surprisingly, much of the emigration
has been from the areas of highest Slavic concentration, including the urban areas. And
simultaneously with the departure of many of the émigrés, there has been a rural-tourban migration, especially by Kazakhs.
17
ARK, Natsional'nyi sostav naseleniia RK 4:1:6–11; and ARK, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Kazakhstana:
Statisticheskii sbornik (Almaty, 2005), 18.
18
ARK, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik, 104.
19
M. Kh. Asylbekov and V. V. Kozina, Kazakhi (Demograficheskie tendentsii 80–90kh godov) (Almaty, 2000),
52. It is worth noting that since independence there has also been a sharp decline in Kazakh natural growth, and that
overall Kazakhstan’s population since 1989 has declined from about 17 million to only about 15 million.
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
111
Unfortunately, no reliable data are available concerning the scale of migration into
the cities. Much of the population movement is illegal, semilegal, or unrecorded, and
some of it tentative, by individuals or families who have not moved entirely or permanently
to the city. Nevertheless, it is clear that many Kazakhs have arrived in Kazakhstan’s
cities and replaced members of other ethnic groups who have departed. The cities most
affected by the immigration of Kazakhs have probably been the “southern capital” of
Almaty, and the “northern capital” of Astana. The latter, a former provincial town which
officially became Kazakhstan’s new capital in 1997, has seen dramatic population growth
in the last decade.20
What share of children from families who have recently moved from the village to
urban areas are attending KMCs? It would seem to be large. However, unfortunately, I
lack the data to analyze this important question. Nevertheless, given the rapid increase
in KMCs in recent years and the rural-to-urban migration, it seems likely that much of
the KMC growth is attributable to children from recently arrived families. This seems
especially plausible given the problems that have plagued KMCs and which probably
discourage many linguistically russified urban Kazakh parents from sending their children
to KMCs. Before turning to these problems, however, we should consider some of the
reasons besides demography that may help explain the shift to KMCs.
NON-DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS BEHIND THE SHIFT TO KMCS
As Soviet census data on Kazakhs’ mastery of Russian suggest, the Kazakh language
receded further during the Soviet era than the titular language in any other non-Slavic
union republic of the USSR. In this context, it is not hard to understand that one of the
major “draws” of the Kazakh language is sentimental.
This factor is very hard to quantify, and because its effect may be largely subconscious,
even extensive survey research might fail to measure it. Even from the mass media,
however, it is clear that the environment is filled with signals that it is the “right thing to
do” for Kazakhs to educate their children in “their own” language. Since the late 1980s,
Kazakhstan’s press has been full of exhortations to Kazakhs to honor their ancestors by
rediscovering and cultivating their roots. The sorrowful tone of statements about the
state of Kazakh is often similar to Temirkhan Medetbekov’s lament that “the Kazakh
language space has receded more than the Aral Sea.”21
The appeals to honor the Kazakh linguistic heritage are often combined with
condemnation of Soviet policy, which is blamed for Kazakh’s loss of status in most public
spheres, including urban workplaces and educational institutions. The calls to raise the
20
The processes are in fact much more complex than described here. For example, many ethnic Kazakhs—
numbering in the hundreds of thousands—have arrived from other former Soviet republics and other countries
(especially Mongolia). Many have received Kazakhstan government support for their move. Meanwhile, many
citizens of Kazakhstan are working temporarily in Russia, whereas in Kazakhstan there are sizeable at least seasonal
labor forces from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, significant numbers of Slavs have migrated into
Kazakhstan from other Central Asian republics.
21
Medetbekov, “Oz tilinen ketkening” (1990).
112
William Fierman
status of Kazakh often stress a link between Kazakhstan’s political independence and
“linguistic independence.” Members of ethnic minorities, especially Slavs with strong
feelings of attachment to Russia and Russian culture, may be alienated by such calls to
linguistic and other forms of kazakhization. Indeed, many linguistically russified longtime Kazakh urban residents also perceive these exhortations as silly, contrived, and
inspired by their advocates’ political ambition more than their patriotic feeling.
Not all reasons for learning Kazakh or enrolling in a KMC are sentimental. Some
are more practical. If, in the Soviet era, Russian was the unambiguous choice of language
medium for any parents seeking to provide their offspring with educational and employment
mobility, today the calculation is somewhat more complex. Unlike in the Soviet era,
higher education is available in the Kazakh language in an extensive list of disciplines.
Moreover, both in indirect and direct fashion, certain jobs are informally or even formally
reserved for those with at least a modicum of Kazakh skills. As government offices are
shifting to greater use of the state language, knowledge of Kazakh is in some cases
becoming a job requirement. Though not taking place uniformly across the country, it is
occurring in response to plans for kazakhization of government office work issued from
the very highest levels of government.
Some pressure to learn Kazakh for employment is more subtle. In a society where
informal relations are often more important than job qualifications, the inability of an
employee to speak Kazakh may interfere with job advancement in an informal way.
Interestingly, many Kazakh authors who address the subject stress the requirement of
Kazakh-language skills for employment in government jobs more in the case of ethnic
Kazakhs than in the case of Slavs and other non-Kazakhs.
As David Laitin has noted, individuals’ linguistic behavior is often shaped by their
expectations of what others will do. 22 Thus, to the extent that demographic and
nondemographic factors combine to alter citizen’s expectations of what language(s) they
will need to communicate with others whom they anticipate encountering, the current
momentum in Kazakhstan toward greater “nationalization” may also encourage movement
toward Kazakh schools.
REASONS FOR RELUCTANCE TO SHIFT TO KMCS
As we noted above, despite the growth of KMCs, in the last eight years RMCs have
continued to enroll approximately 20 percent of all Kazakh school children, and probably
close to 30 percent in urban areas. What factors might explain this phenomenon? One
underlying reason is that for all the rhetoric and exhortations (especially for Kazakh
audiences) to learn the Kazakh language and to send their children to KMCs, language
policy in Kazakhstan has been quite moderate in that there have been few sanctions for
failure to comply with language legislation. Some of this may be attributable to the rather
cautious policy by President Nazarbayev, who has been careful not to “tilt” too far in
22
David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca,
1998), 21–24.
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
113
favor of Kazakh in any field, including education. True, in the past few years, Nazarbayev’s
policies seem to be leaning toward greater kazakhization, but the president still seems
keenly aware that many non-Kazakhs and Kazakhs alike oppose any extreme nationalism.
Another obvious reason that kazakhization of education has not moved faster is that it
would require enormous financial resources. Although Kazakhstan has great natural
wealth (especially energy deposits), the country has still not fully recovered from the
economic shocks of the collapse of the USSR. This has had a severe impact on social
services, including education. Moreover, to the extent that the financial situation of the
country has improved, it has disproportionately benefited a small stratum of elites who
have siphoned off profits from the public treasury. Funding for education has been meager,
including investment in its kazakhization.
Aside from the relatively moderate government policy and the funding problems,
another important reason for Kazakh parents continuing to choose RMCs for their children
is that job advancement in urban areas generally continues to require excellent Russianlanguage skills; meanwhile, especially outside of the state sector, Kazakh language is
often not required. Not unrelated, the quality of Russian-medium higher education in
Kazakhstan is generally higher than of Kazakh; moreover, the variety of subjects available
in Russian is broader than in Kazakh. The difference is especially marked in areas of the
country where the majority of the population is Slavic. Beyond this, there is a serious
lack of textbooks for Kazakh higher education. Consequently, even “Kazakh” groups
must use Russian books, especially in technical subjects. Only 15 percent of the textbooks
for higher technical educational institutions were in Kazakh in 2003.23 Thus, even when
lectures are in Kazakh, the textbooks may not be.24 Such problems in Kazakh-medium
higher education are certainly part of the reason that in 2003 only 32 percent of students
in Kazakhstan’s higher education institutions were studying in Kazakh.25 The shortage
of Kazakh textbooks in technical subjects may be an important reason that only 21.9
percent of higher education students studying technical subjects were in Kazakh groups.26
The school quality issue, however, is not confined only to higher education. Education
officials openly criticize the quality of Kazakh-language textbooks used in elementary
and secondary schools as well. There is also a serious teacher shortage. This affects not
only KMCs, but to the extent it affects them, it may be an especially serious problem in
urban areas. In rural areas, where employment opportunities are few, teachers may be
content with their low-paying teaching jobs. In urban areas, however, there are likely to
be other employment opportunities, especially for the more talented. In any case, the
shortage of teachers for both urban and rural KMCs has been worsening in recent years,
reaching 2,100 in 2002. Not surprisingly, the shortage was greatest in some subjects of
greatest interest to young people—English and computer science—along with physics,
chemistry, and history.27
Kulekeev speech in “Ortaq til…,” Egemen Qazaqstan, October 1, 2003.
The problem of Kazakh-language groups in higher education being obliged to use Russian-language textbooks
was criticized by State Secretary Imanghali Tasmaghambetov in his speech at a meeting reported in ibid.
25
Ibid.
26
Shamsha Berkimbaeva, “Bolashaq — mektepten bastalady,” Qazaqstan mektebi (February 2003): 10.
27
Ibid., 8.
23
24
114
William Fierman
Although there are exceptions, and the situation appears to be changing, there has
been a generally lower level of achievement for pupils of KMCs. One indication of this is
that in 2002, only 37 (19 percent) of the 186 winners of academic olympiads in Kazakhstan
were pupils of the 1172 “elite” Kazakh schools (litsei, gimnaziia, and those with enriched
academic programs); even pupils of the handful of Kazakh-Turkish litsei (only 24 schools
total) had more winners among their pupils—45.28
Assuming that much of the growth in Kazakh-medium schools is attributable to the
arrival of pupils from the countryside, it is quite possible that urban Kazakh parents are
also reluctant to send their children to KMCs because they view the new arrivals as
poorly prepared, disadvantaged, or unsophisticated, if not a combination of all three.
Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that some urban parents see KMC teachers as
providing too conservative an upbringing for their children, forcing children to be too
passive and submissive.29
My research on the issues discussed here is continuing, and some factors affecting schools
that are discussed above are difficult to predict. Moreover, although I have dealt with
trends in Kazakh cities as a whole, each city is unique, and the situation in Qyzylorda in
the south, for example, is vastly different from that of Petropavl in the north. Despite
this, it may be worth taking a moment to consider some of the possible actions that the
Kazakhstan government might undertake that would have a positive impact on the use of
Kazakh in the schools.
The most direct way in which the Kazakhstan government might affect
“nationalization” of schools would be through regulation of curriculum and school
organization, including the possible segregation of RMCs from KMCs in what are now
mixed schools. It is also conceivable that, for example, regulations could make a shift to
an RMC more difficult for rural KMC pupils whose families moved from the village to
the city. Many measures could be undertaken to improve the quality of Kazakh education,
including development of better textbooks for KMCs, and premiums for salaries of KMC
teachers. The government could also make a higher level of Kazakh skills necessary for
entrance into higher education, or make entrance into Kazakh-medium higher education
easier than into the Russian-medium equivalent. Each of these policies has its own costs
and benefits. For example, easier access to Kazakh-language higher education could
deprive some talented RMC graduates of the opportunity to continue with advanced studies.
Other government policies might be even more important in affecting the level of
linguistic kazakhization of schools, albeit indirectly. Among these is implementation of
laws mandating the increasing use of Kazakh instead of Russian in government offices,
or even in the private sector. This would in turn affect calculations about the relative
desirability of Kazakh- and Russian-medium education. Such policies are admittedly
extremely problematic in a country where corruption is so widespread: it would be
extraordinarily difficult to establish a “clean” system that tested language competence
Ibid., 7.
On the other hand, this very “passivity” is sometimes portrayed in a positive way by parents who feel that
Russian schools allow pupils too much freedom, and do not teach children to respect authority.
28
29
Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
115
throughout the country, both in state and private employment. Nevertheless, government
policy of this sort is relevant; indeed, regardless of how twisted in implementation, language
requirements for employment are already affecting the choice of language of education.
Many of the factors that will affect language in the schools are related to economic
and political decisions of an even broader sort. One area is mass media. Kazakhstan has
passed laws that mandate an increasing share of television and radio broadcasts be in
Kazakh. Although this law is subverted in practice, there are other ways to “kazakhize”
the media, including providing funds to encourage the production of more and higherquality Kazakh television, radio, and print media, not to mention such newer channels as
CDs and the internet. Government decisions will also affect the costs and benefits to the
individual of moving from rural to urban areas or between different parts of the country,
thus influencing the demographic composition of cities. Besides affecting school
enrollments directly, this will shape the urban linguistic environment and therefore
influence the utility of various language repertoires of city inhabitants.
Major decisions about Kazakhstan’s political structure—in particular the degree of
centralization of authority—will also affect language in the schools. As noted above,
there is great variation in the demographic and linguistic composition among Kazakhstan’s
oblasts. A more decentralized political system would likely yield different policies both
directly and indirectly affecting language. The insistence of Kazakhstan’s leadership on
a unitary system of government promotes uniformity and (at least on paper) probably
more kazakhization; however, this could change in the future.
Other factors affecting language in the schools are still further remote, but may be
critical. A very nationalist regime in Russia that sought to “protect” ethnic Russians in
the “Near Abroad” from “nationalizing” policies of other newly independent states would
produce profound, though unpredictable, reverberations in Kazakhstan. Likewise, a
flourishing economy in labor-poor Russia, combined with preferential policies for
immigration by ethnic Russians, would probably reinforce demographic and linguistic
kazakhization in Kazakhstan. On the other hand, the same flourishing economy in Russia
combined with possible stagnation in Kazakhstan and better employment opportunities
in a Russia more open to non-Russians could place a higher premium on Russian skills
for Kazakhs.
To conclude with a brief reconsideration of the issue of government policy to
“nationalize” (“kazakhize”) the schools of Kazakhstan, and particularly to do this through
language, it would seem that the best chance of success lies in gradually raising the value
of knowing Kazakh and investing resources that will be required to improve the quality
of Kazakh education. Without this, measures such as the segregation of KMCs and RMCs
into separate schools might make the choice of the Kazakh-medium for their children
less likely for urban parents who see disincentives in forgoing the Russian-language
education. As described above, the proportion of Kazakh ethnic pupils in RMCs appears
to have remained relatively stable for over a decade. Although the difference in quality of
RMC and KMC education may be decreasing, anecdotal evidence suggests that there is
still a widespread opinion that, by and large, RMCs provide a better education than KMCs.
By privileging the graduates of KMCs without raising the standard of education they
provide, and simultaneously dismantling the mixed schools, the Kazakhstan government
116
William Fierman
may risk greater alienation of those segments of society who value education the most.
This could be a very costly and ultimately counterproductive policy for a government
seeking to pursue economic growth at the same time as it creates a sense of state identity
rooted in Kazakh language and culture.