CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Global Education and Training collaborated with Kazakhstan to develop a new education management program that was implemented in September.
The intensive program, which was titled, “Education Team Building and Management: KPI-Based Quality Control,” brought 26 people from Almaty, Kazakhstan to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus from Sept. 14 through Sept. 26.
This two-week program was the second time GET hosted a short-term training program for professionals from Kazakhstan (outside of the Bolashak Program) in 2025. The first program, which took place in May, had a topical focus on vocational education.
The delegation from the September program was largely composed of school principals, deputy principals, and teachers from Almaty. Additionally, a representative from the Department of Education of Almaty City and a representative of the City Scientific & Methodological Center for New Technologies in Education (Kazakhstan) joined the delegation.
Melissa Ramos, the program coordinator responsible for the development and implementation of this program, said the goal was to provide the delegation with a deep and multifaceted insight into the U.S. education system, which, Ramos said, was exactly what they did.
During the program, delegation members participated in 21 sessions featuring lectures, a panel, site visits, and cultural visits, and heard from over 20 unique speakers and panelists.
The lectures highlighted different elements of U.S. K-12 education from the perspective of area schools like Champaign School District Unit 4 or Rantoul City School District 137. Topics in these lectures spanned from teacher retention, finances, school reform, school governance, and human resource management in schools.
The delegation also heard of the challenges and innovations in school leadership at U.S. public schools and charter schools during a panel discussion.
Ramos said it was through this balanced blend of lectures, practical site visits, and cultural engagements, that made the program so successful.
“The program achieved its core objectives by facilitating knowledge exchange on critical themes such as instructional leadership, human resource management, school reform, and special education, among other topics,” Ramos said. “Participants gained valuable, practical perspectives from interacting with over 26 experts, including University of Illinois faculty, school superintendents, school principals and librarians. The site visits to diverse Illinois school districts and institutions like the Champaign Public Library provided tangible models for educational innovation, community engagement, and the application of new technologies, which participants highlighted as particularly impactful.”
Like many great and successful projects and programs, the September short-term education management program started with an idea.
In the context of this program, that idea stemmed from collaboration between GET Associate Director Grant Brewer, Zhuldyz “Julie” Amangeldi, and the city of Almaty that started with a desire to help Kazakhstani professionals and motivated by GET’s reputation with training programs.
Brewer said although developing the program took almost a year, it was Almaty’s interest in helping their own with professional development that pushed the process forward.
“(Almaty has) been investing a lot of resources into professional development for their own professionals, [with] education being a main driver,” Brewer said. “Upon receiving their request, we of course were able to demonstrate our experience and expertise in delivering programs.”
The opportunity to collaborate with GET and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was an additional motivator.
GET Director Matt Rosenstein credited previous, extensive collaborations with Kazakhstan, such as the Bolashak Fellows program, as helping cement their positive reputation because it has opened the doors for additional cooperation throughout the country.
“As the country seeks to spur economic growth, improve quality of life of its citizens, and foster advances in education, national and municipal leaders in Kazakhstan see the value of investing in short-term training programs addressing topics of high interest and need,” Rosenstein said. “The reputation of the GET office and (Illinois) as a site for professional training programs has been established through the positive experiences others from Kazakhstan had on our campus. This has led to requests for additional programs.”
Once the program was awarded in April, Ramos led the architecture of the program and together with the entire GET team, she helped take the program from theory to practice.
“We believe the best way to learn is immersive. That’s why we took the delegation from the classroom to the front lines of education,” Ramos said. “The program wasn’t just about knowledge transfer; it was about forging a partnership with the Almaty City Department of Education.”
Ramos said in the end, program participants reported high satisfaction with the content, organization, and support provided, specifically valuing sessions on special education, strategic planning, and the library system—all of which were areas they expressed a strong desire to implement or adapt within the Kazakh context.
Participants also offered suggestions for future programs, such as incorporating comparisons with the Kazakh education system or visiting larger urban schools, providing valuable guidance for continued collaboration.
“This training program not only equipped the Almaty delegation with actionable strategies and frameworks for enhancing their own educational institutions but also served to strengthen the international partnership between the Almaty City Department of Education and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,” Ramos said. “The knowledge gained and the professional networks forged during this intensive two-week period lay a solid foundation for continued dialogue and future cooperative endeavors in advancing educational excellence.”
This program and the end results and feedback serve as another example of how Illinois International is acting on pursuing the priorities laid out in Illinois’ Vision 2030 Global Strategy. GET is actively developing and strengthening mutually beneficial partnerships within the Illinois community, on campus, and abroad, particularly with Kazakhstan.
Rosenstein said GET shares over five years of active engagement with Kazakhstan and that relationship continues to grow with more opportunities to strengthen and expand partnerships for Illinois.
“The Ministry of Education and higher education institutions in Kazakhstan are eager to build partnerships with universities around the globe,” Rosenstein said.
Brewer echoed that the number of programs and total number of participants is ultimately growing with Kazakhstan, something, he said, that is happening for two reasons.
“I think it goes in this direction for two reasons: one, the flexibility and high-quality programs that GET provides have met the needs of the country and specific municipalities and organizations. We have begun to make a name for ourselves,” Brewer said. “And two, the amount of resources Kazakhstan has put into developing their own people is very honorable. They are very much invested in their future, and it has allowed GET the opportunity to provide some of that training.”