Integration of Kazakh-Turkish Lyseum Graduates and Their Social Activity in University Life

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Case of Saniya

Saniya’s case is interesting and rare. The reason is that she is KTL student, but not KTL graduate. She enrolled at KTL during the 2nd term of the 7th grade. Before her 10th school year started, she decided to leave KTL and enroll at Nazarbayev Intellectual School (NIS). As Saniya states, her adaptation period lasted for not long period of time, but still it was difficult to accustom to the new society. Concerning questions about her attitude towards working with boys and romantic relationships, Saniya felt awkwardness and inconvenience during the first term of the 10th school year. Later on, the situation has changed in the second semester, she has already become an important part of her class and school choir club. As a result, after enrolling at university, she had absolutely no problems. During the first days, Saniya has become part of another choir club and participated in all the organized events. Moreover, Saniya is engineering student which means that the overwhelming majority of her classmates are males, nevertheless, it was easy and she considered it as ordinary situation. I should mention that Saniya is quite sociable person who can reach an understanding with almost everyone and it was a pleasure to interview her. Additionally, Saniya said:”It was difficult to adapt in NIS after just 2.5 years in KTL, I can’t even imagine how hard it could be in the university if I had stayed there for 5 years”.

Conclusion

Overall, I interviewed 5 KTL graduates with different personal characters and stories. The main result of the paper is that situation with jokes on KTL graduates is not a stereotype, but the truth, some of the KTL students really become less sociable and require more time to adapt to the new environment, even though personal traits also have a significant role.

In case of Aigerim and Aidos, it is clearly seen that KTL system does not pay attention to the students’ development except their academic progress. They are unsociable persons themselves and KTL system does not help to eliminate this personality trait, vice versa, makes it deeper, since they are still struggling.

Analyzing Dariga’s situation, thanks to her sociable individuality, it was much easier for her to adapt to the mixed system. However, even being sociable, she faced with adaptation problems, based on this, it could be suggested that KTL isolation deteriorated her communication skills.

The Ernur’s and Saniya’s situations are the most attractive, both of them solved the problem of adaptation before it actually came, even though in different ways. Neither Saniya nor Ernur faced with difficulties at university because they have been practicing communication skills outside KTL, Ernur visited Drama clubs, while Saniya just changed the school.

To conclude, although KTLs contribute to the students’ significant academic progress, it is achieved at the expense of appropriate social development that can cause some negative impact on their future studies, social bonds and career. Unsociable students become worse off enrolling in KTL (Ex: Aigerim and Aidos), since they stop practicing socializing with the opposite gender, while at the mixed schools they would have to do it and eventually overcome the problem. Sociable students, partly lose their communication skills, even though they can recover it later (Ex: Dariga). The best suggestion is an example of Ernur and Saniya, which is either visiting every weekends different clubs and activities or study in KTL only half of the period and change the school on another well educating one. Generally, the Government of Kazakhstan will be in benefit, if they change KTLs a little bit, to give more freedom or, for instance, organize interactions between girls from KTL and boys from another KTL to develop their social part properly. Otherwise, what is the point of having extremely smart and highly-educated people if they are not able to work with different groups?

Reference list

Pahlke, E., Hyde, J. S., & Allison, C. M. (2014). The effects of single-sex compared with coeducational schooling on students’ performance and attitudes: A meta-analysis.

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