Chapter 13: Examining Education Change in Urban Kazakhstan: A Short Spatial Story

The Kazakhstani Constitution ensured that the access to education is a right for all its citizens. Since becoming independent in 1991, the Kazakhstani government has been proactively pursuing reforms in numerous social policy domains, including in the education sphere. While the focus of the regulatory reforms in the 1990s was on the higher education sector, the target of the 2000s has been on systemic comprehensive education reform. Given that the focus of the reforms has been driven by macro level institutions, consequently, seminal research on Kazakhstani education has centered around aggregated data sets, curriculum, or macro policy analysis, with a particular focus on higher education (Abilov, 2004; Bridges, 2014; Caboni, 2004; Dave, 2004; Drummond, 2011; Kalikova & Silova, 2008; Lee, 2004; Medeuov, 2004).