The Analysis of the Content of the Geography School Curriculum for the Section ‘Country Studies’ in the Republic of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The concept of improving the content and structure of school geographic education was based on the following logic of building the subject: Earth Science—Country Studies (physical geography of continents and oceans)—Geography of the Republic of Kazakhstan—Geography of the World. The content of all geography courses in school was built on the basis of comprehensive country studies along with the scientific popularization of geographical knowledge available to basic school students. In the modern geography curriculum for 7–9 and 10–11 grades, the content of regional studies is of socio-economic and geopolitical nature. A feature of the curriculum is the emphasis of students on mathematical modeling, on research activities, it is proposed to introduce the use of previously acquired knowledge to achieve the students’ goals; new knowledge is closely related to previous and considered in terms of the information received; the complexity of the topic or subject increases with each repetition; the spiral educational program allows to move from simple ideas to more complex in a convenient way. The content of school geography also needs further integration of the content of physical and socio-economic geography in unified country studies courses. Comprehensive country studies create a reliable foundation for holistic geography and serve as the core of a comprehensive study of individual territories of the world. In connection with the change in modern curricula, the hours of the regional chapter have decreased and have gone through other changes. To improve country studies in Kazakhstan, a high-quality teaching method is used. Due to improvements in teaching country studies 300 teachers took part in an online Google questionnaire prepared by researchers. The received data was evaluated by SWOT analysis.