The Competence Framework for a Vocational Teacher in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Nowadays, a number of challenges in the area of vocational education in Kazakhstan have been recognized. The present survey study was aimed at evaluating the key competencies required for contemporary vocational teachers in Kazakhstan to draft the competence framework. First, twenty vocational education and training experts were interviewed to gather their opinions on what are the most important competencies for the aforementioned specialists. As a result, eight competencies have been formulated. Based on expert interviews, an electronic questionnaire was developed, through which fifty vocational teachers and teacher educators with ten to twenty years of experience in the field were requested to rate each of the eight competencies specified. According to the results, vocational teacher's abilities to apply technological devices in the educational process as well as to adapt the training material to the content specificity, students' age and skill level were found to be highest rated, whereas the ability to perform didactic transformation has been evaluated by the respondents as the least important. The findings suggest that vocational teacher education curricula in Kazakhstan should primarily focus on areas of expertise related to the capacity of future vocational teachers to employ technological devices during teaching-learning activities along with their ability to adjust the content to learners' background. If the proposed draft is being elaborated by further focus groups, it may be employed for clarifications and adjustments in vocational education and training programs in Kazakhstan, as well as for the training personnel examination, in order to enhance educational outcomes.