Multilingualism in Modern Kazakhstan: New Challenges

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of multilingualism and multilingual education in modern Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is a multiethnic and multi-religious state, where live more than 126 representatives of different ethnic groups. At the present stage in the development of Kazakhstani society, bilingualism is gradually turning into multilingualism. One of the most important strategic goals of the language policy of Kazakhstan is the necessity of speaking several languages: Kazakh, Russian and English. Kazakhstan is currently implementing overall modernization of the education system and embedding a multilingualism policy into the educational process as well. The experimental sites for multilingual education have been initiated in several Kazakhstani Universities and secondary schools. The young Kazakhstani generation brought up in independent Kazakhstan is involved in multilingual education process. By the year 2020, 100% of the population is expected to speak the Kazakh language, 95% Russian and 25% English. For the implementation of these goals a fundamentally new type of learning - e-learning - is being developed. Its test-project has been initiated within 44 institutions. In 2014 the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan is increasing the number of such institutions by providing them with the Internet access at the speed of 4 to 10 Mbit per sec. The outcome of the research is based on the sociolinguistic data which has been conducted in all regions of the country, using the methods of sociolinguistic data collection.