President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that more than 700 grave errors have been found in the country's school textbooks, which could have severe consequences for the quality of education. He made this statement at the republican August conference of teachers, as reported by infohub.kz.
The head of state drew attention to the quality of educational programs and teaching materials, emphasizing that the Ministry of Education and regional education departments should pay special attention to this issue. "The Ministry of Education and regional administrations must primarily work on improving the regulatory and legal framework, building an effective educational process, and carefully analyzing educational programs," Tokayev said.
The President noted that the government recently presented the results of its work, during which hundreds of serious shortcomings were found in school textbooks. "More than 700 grave errors were identified in school textbooks, with, without exaggeration, the most severe consequences for the quality of school education. More than 700 errors," the President stressed.
Tokayev also mentioned the need to revise educational materials containing inaccurate historical information. "I have just spoken about the need to revise educational materials that describe an inaccurate historical fact," the head of state said.
The President's words were confirmed by the Minister of Education, Zholdas Suleimenova. According to her, specialists examined the content of all textbooks and identified grave errors, including incorrect labeling of regions and inaccuracies in historical dates. "We have already begun to publish textbooks with updated content in stages. Currently, textbooks for 7th and 11th grades have been printed. By April, textbooks for 9th, 8th, and 4th grades will be published," Suleimenova told journalists on the sidelines of the August conference.
The Minister noted that she personally reviewed textbooks from all 15 publishing houses and found errors that astonished her. Now, educational materials will be updated in stages.
Earlier, Kursiv reported that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev noted a significant gap in the quality of education between regions of Kazakhstan. At the August conference of teachers, he named the regions whose graduates' results require special attention.