Language and education in post-Soviet Kazakhstan: Kazakh-medium instruction in urban schools

Russian Review

Volumn 65, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 98-116

  Fierman, William ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34248031295     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9434.2005.00388.x     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Isabelle Kreindler, "Forging a Soviet People," in Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation, ed. William Fierman (Boulder, 1991), 219-31
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
4. Temirkhan Medetbekov, "Oz tilinen ketkening, oz tubine zhetkening," Leninshil zhas, August 9, 1990
5. 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
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
8. Concerning variance between the Soviet 1989 census data published in Moscow and those subsequently cited in the 1999 Kazakhstan census see Kapitän (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)
9. 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 non-Kazakhs 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
10. 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 non-Russian schools can be gleaned from the 2003/2004 report (pp. 7, 53)
11. Academic years are noted by the year in which they began. Thus, academic year 2004-5 is referred to here as "academic year 2004."
12. 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 ernes," Ana tili, October 2, 2003
13. 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
14. For Berkimbaev's comments see Shamsha Berkimbaeva, "Bolashaq - mektepten bastalady," Qazaqstan mektebi (February 2003): 15
15. For Kulekeev's comments see the summary of his speech in Egemen Qazaqstan, October 1, 2003
16. 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
17. For an example of this kind of argument see the article by historian Tolemish Absalimuly, "Tiltangdau - oktemdikting zangdastyryluy," Ana tili, September 26, 2002
18. ARK, Natsional'nyi sostav naseleniia RK 4:1:6-11
19. and ARK, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik Kazakhstana: Statisticheskii sbornik (Almaty, 2005), 18
20. ARK, Demograficheskii ezhegodnik, 104
21. 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
22. Medetbekov, "Oz tilinen ketkening" (1990)
23. David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, 1998), 21-24
24. Kulekeev speech in "Ortaq til...," Egemen Qazaqstan, October 1, 2003