Utilizing the Responsive University Model for Sustainable Higher

Education and Student Civic Engagement

O. A. Shebalina

Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Kazakhstan

Keywords: Kazakhstan, Youth Potential Development, Responsive University, Satisfaction of Needs.

Abstract: The article discusses the development of the sociocultural potential of youth in the university environment as

a factor of sustainable development based on a survey of undergraduate students in four regions of the

Republic of Kazakhstan. The study offers a solution to the identified problems through the implementation of

the concept of a "responsive university", based on a prompt response to the extracurricular needs of students

and their satisfaction with the priorities of the state youth policy.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the conditions of rapid changes taking place in

modern Kazakh society, economic and political

transformations, attention to the needs of young

people as the most necessary resource for the

reproduction of society is increasing. It is the

education of stable values of statehood, the formation

of an active civic position, environmentally

responsible behaviour, and the development of

mechanisms for youth participation in the public and

political life of the country that require the close

attention of the state and society. In these conditions,

universities are a fundamentally important link that

ensures the development of the necessary qualities of

the younger generation.

Every year, universities receive and graduate

thousands of young people. However, considerable

attention is paid mainly to the development of

professionally valuable skills, often paying

insufficient attention to the development of socially

essential qualities. Increasingly, society has a

problem when young professionals don't have any

striving and possibilities to communicate, performing

only passive roles to obtain a stable income. At the

same time, the level of their civic engagement is also

sufficiently low.

Despite the stable percentage of active youth who

seek to promote their initiatives while still studying,

only a non-significant part retains the desire to be

involved in public activities to take an active civic

position. There is a significant fading interest in

realizing their social potential among third- and

fourth-year undergraduate students in Kazakhstan

universities.

In this study, we have attempted to identify the

causes of "expectations' burnout" and discuss several

preventive measures to reduce such situations.

Creating a basis for understanding the complex

system of training competitive specialists relevant to

the needs of employers and rapidly developing

society requires a holistic approach to the higher

education system, likewise studying the needs and

expectations of students.

Such an integrated approach can be implemented

with the help of the concept of a "hearing" university,

capable of responding sensitively to the needs of the

state, business, industry, and students.

Following the priority goals of state regulation of

education and science, the formation of the

worldviews of young students in the context of

vocational education should be based on universal

values, which will contribute to improving the global

competitiveness of Kazakh education. In these

conditions, the identification of conditions for the

development of the socio-cultural potential of young

people is of particular importance as a factor in

ensuring the formation of global and interdisciplinary

competencies of the 21st century, including

volunteering, civic and social responsibility,

leadership, communication, research, and

entrepreneurial skills. The socio-cultural potential of

young people in these conditions acts as a set of

qualities and capabilities of the younger generation,

Shebalina, O.

Utilizing the Responsive University Model for Sustainable Higher Education and Student Civic Engagement.

DOI: 10.5220/0012952100003882

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR-2 2023), pages 1063-1069

ISBN: 978-989-758-723-8

1063

formed under the influence of certain factors and a

professionally oriented educational environment.

According to the National Report "Youth 2020",

a new structure of value orientations of the youth of

Kazakhstan is being formed, modeled on the top 5

popular social trends among young people:

commitment to a healthy lifestyle (48.5%),

volunteering (47.1%), travel (28.7%), civic

engagement (23.1%) and environmental issues

(17.7%). Following the OECD recommendations for

2020, The focus of educational programs should be

on providing high-quality professional and social

skills demanded by employers and meeting the

current and future needs of the labor market. A more

knowledgeable and active workforce with a broad

outlook and international thinking capable to provide

a valuable contribution to the development of the

economy and society.

Based on the above, the research hypothesis boils

down to the assumption that the development of the

socio-cultural potential of youth in the university

environment can be realized through the concept of a

"responsive" university implying to the needs of

students, industry, the state, and society, which will

avoid the "burnout of expectations" of students.

2 REVIEW

The conducted research includes several stages:

analysis of students' opinions on the need to develop

the socio-cultural potential of youth in the context of

higher professional education, the evaluation of the

socio-cultural environment of universities and the

opportunities provided for young people, interviews

with representatives of the administration and student

activists about the problems of "burnout of

expectations" of students.

The method of collecting information is a survey

(questionnaire) of students and teachers of the

vocational education system. This method allows us

to obtain the most objective information about the

current situation and characteristics of the socio-

cultural environment in Kazakhstan organizations of

high education and subsequently identify problems

and needs occurring in the development of the socio-

cultural potential of the youth of the Republic of

Kazakhstan.

The territory of the sociological research covers

the city of Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Karaganda, and

Mangystau regions. The volume of the sample

population of the survey based on a multi-stage

stratified sample was 709 undergraduate students

enrolled in various educational programs, of which

33,99% were men, 66,01% were women; 5,03% were

under the age of 18; 94,15% were 18-23 years old;

0,4% were 24-29 years old, and 0,42% were 30-35

years old.

In the next stage, a series of 15 interviews were

conducted with representatives of the teaching staff,

administrative staff of the university, and

representatives of student activists.

3 METHODOLOGY

Respondents were asked to assess the need for the

following types of extracurricular activities while

studying at a university.

• Creative clubs

• Sports sections

• Debate clubs

• Support of a healthy lifestyle

• Activities of student councils

• Charity/volunteer movements

• Activities of corruption prevention units

• Additional language clubs/courses

• Scientific circles/laboratories.

As a result of the study, the following was

revealed: 70% of respondents agree with the

statement that in addition to teaching a profession,

conditions for comprehensive personal development

should be created in the educational organization,

while more than 72% state that they have never

engaged in these types of activities, less than 13%

express a desire to engage, 7% claim that this there is

no necessary type of activity at the university, and

only 8 percent are regularly engaged (fig. 1).

Figure 1: Students’ engagement to extracurricular

activities

At the same time, 58.4% indicated that they receive

information about the activities of interest on the

website, stands, from tutors and representatives of

youth organizations. 23,4% are informed randomly

through other students, the rest of the respondents

stated that the information is difficult to access or

irrelevant (fig. 2).

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Figure 2: Ways for students to get information about

opportunities for self-development

More than 50% of respondents highly appreciate the

conditions created for the development of

communication skills, the ability to work in a team,

legal culture, financial literacy, literacy in the field of

a healthy lifestyle, culture of behavior, adaptation

skills in a new team, the ability to communicate with

representatives of other worldviews and cultures

during training. The highest rating was given to the

conditions created at universities for teamwork.

While, according to 32% of respondents' view, the

opportunities for the development of religious and

political literacy are at a low level.

Among the factors that have a positive impact on the

development of students' opportunities in the social

and cultural fields, the most popular are students'

awareness of existing opportunities, existing clubs,

circles, sections (49,2%), encouragement of

participation in the work of clubs, circles, sections by

the university administration (33,5%), promotion of

student youth proposals for comprehensive

development personality (28%). Such factors as

clarification of civil rights and duties, increasing

religious and political literacy within the framework

of general education disciplines and curatorial hours,

holding meetings and meetings with representatives

of the university or college management, members of

non-governmental organizations, law enforcement

agencies on issues of concern to students gained less

than 20% support, another 24,6% found it difficult to

answer.

The reasons that do not allow students to develop

their potential are the following: lack of information

about opportunities for additional development;

heavy workload in academic disciplines and

assignments; unwillingness to waste time; the

conviction that participation will not change anything

and will not affect anything; also indicate a lack of

necessary capabilities (fig.3).

Figure 3: The causes hindering the development of

student potential.

Creative clubs (49,4%), additional language learning

(42,9%), and sports sections (39,5%) have the most

popularity among the types of activities that students

need during their studies for the full development of

their personality. At the same time, such activities as

the anti-corruption, the study of the culture and

traditions of other peoples, and volunteering scored

less than 15% of the votes.

Different levels of satisfaction with the conditions

provided for the development of youth at the

university (in addition to training) were recorded:

38.4% are fully satisfied, 37.4% are partially

satisfied, 7.8% are not satisfied, 16.4% found it

difficult to answer.

The most significant factors for the self-realization of

young people after graduation are the demand for the

profession (83%) and the formation of a respectful

attitude towards family and marriage (77,3%).

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle (32%) and regular

sports (34,7%) are the least popular.

As the types of activities in which respondents are

capable take an active part as the representatives of

the modern youth of Kazakhstan, respondents chose

official meetings with government representatives,

non-governmental organizations (in online and

offline format), and creative festivals for youth.

Participation in youth projects, activities of branches

of the Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan, and

participation in surveys and interviews are less

popular.

The analysis of qualitative data shows that according

to the prevailing opinion that modern universities pay

quite a lot of attention to the comprehensive

development of young people, and the realization of

their social and cultural potential, there are still

several problematic issues.

«It is not the first year that we have seen a tendency

that students who took an active part in all possible

activities by the third or fourth year don't have the

Utilizing the Responsive University Model for Sustainable Higher Education and Student Civic Engagement

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urge to do anything besides study at all. A most likely,

general education department for complete the

university’s plan overload students and discourage

all strives for the initiative in the future actions».

Dean of the Technical Faculty, Karaganda region.

«We are constantly working with first-year students,

but there are very few people who want to take part

somewhere. In words, they are ready to do a lot, but

in fact, only a few wants and do something. I don't

know how else to attract them. »

Head of the anti-corruption club at the university,

Karaganda region

«We have a very acute problem involving young

people in active social activities. Now we talk, for

example, not about volunteering while only taking

part in events for young people that we hold».

Representative of the Youth Affairs Committee,

Mangystau region.

«Of course, we would be happy to take part

everywhere, but there is no time at all. So many tasks»

Student, Nur-Sultan

«All events are planned for the evening or on the

weekend, so it's inconvenient. I'd rather spend this

time with friends.»

Student, Nur-Sultan

«We observe certain problems with the information

exchange. Every day we have information about some

urgent activities. Consequently, often we attract

students for getting a certain amount of people

somewhere. It's a very formal attitude».

The 2nd course's adviser, Almaty

«Students are not sure that they will be heard, and it

is worth wasting their energy on a useless thing».

University teacher, Mangystau region

In addition to the above, respondents also indicated

that the quality of dissemination of information about

additional activities is rather low. Most students just

don't know about the opportunities provided by the

university, and are also not motivated to take part

anywhere. At the same time, a certain low motivation

of students to engage in the business processes of the

university, silencing their needs can lead to the

formation of “group thinking” in the academic

environment, which occurs when there is strong

cohesion in the group, isolation of the group from

opposing opinions and the presence of a directive

leader who makes all decisions. In our case, the

university administration can act as such a leader.

The implementation of vertical communications

“student-administration” at the same time can acquire

such characteristic features as:

• Limitation to several alternatives in solving

issues;

• Lack of tendencies to revise decisions taken

by an absolute majority, even if certain

problems arise during their implementation;

• No need for expert evaluation of solutions;

• Selective attitude of communication

participants to the content and use of

information;

• The upper level of communication flows is

so confident in its ideas that it does not

consider action plans in non-standard

situations.

• An example of such a situation can be the

recent competition in one of the Kazakh

universities for the development of a logo,

when a small number of people took part in

the voting. Subsequently, all the others who

ignored the vote expressed obvious

dissatisfaction with the result in

conversations.

In general, the assessment of the intensity of vertical

information flows, the level of feedback, the

efficiency and reliability of data; the nature and

methods of its transmission can be carried out by

projecting G. Hofstede “Cultural dimensions Theory”

on the communication processes in higher education

institutions [1, 8 p.].

This theory allows us to evaluate communications by

the parameters of power distance parameter and the

"individualism-collectivism". The distance of power

is a parameter associated with solutions to the main

problem of human inequality. With a very high power

distance, the administration exercises control over all

the actions of the student, while with a decrease in the

distance, the initiative passes to the student. The

parameters of "individualism-collectivism" in the

educational process are associated with the

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integration of individuals into primary groups. The

following dependence is estimated: the higher the

indicators of collectivism, the lower the effectiveness

of discussions.

Thus, the conducted research made it possible to

identify several problematic issues in the

development of the socio-cultural potential of young

people in the process of obtaining a specialty,

including:

• Low level of student involvement in the

university’s extracurricular activities;

• Insufficient level of awareness about the

opportunities provided by the university;

• Insufficient universities' attention to the

needs of students for their development as a

person and citizen;

• Low interest of students in additional

development due to high academic load;

• Formal attitude (in some cases) to the

involvement of students in university events

of various levels, the implementation of

measures to support student initiatives and

meet the needs of personal development;

• Lack of motivation of young people to

participate in youth projects, volunteer

activities, anti-corruption clubs, studying of

culture and traditions of other peoples, as

well as other social activities.

To solve these problems, can be used a new vision of

a model of “responsive” university. The model

provides not only a sensitive response of the

university to the needs of industry, business, and the

state, but for the comprehensive disclosure and

realization of the socio-cultural potential of the

studying youth as the main resource for the

reproduction of society.

The definition of responsiveness can be approached

by analyzing the list of stakeholders in the field of

higher education, including primarily students,

teachers, university administration, government,

industry, and business. Of particular interest is a study

by Stoessel, Jonathan W., offering an analysis of the

responsiveness of American universities [2, p. 1].

According to Silver, universities should become

functional organs of society [3, p. 547-548], acting

based on a “social contract” between stakeholders

inside and outside the universities [4, p. 568-569].

Thus, in the conditions of academic freedom in

Kazakhstan higher education, universities take

responsibility for the quality of educational services

provided, exercising internal management and

control. At the same time, the idea of a “social

contract” is aimed at providing an opportunity to

develop flexible educational and extracurricular

initiatives following the needs of stakeholders. The

significance of the “social contract” will increase as

the quality of communication between stakeholders

improves.

In these conditions, universities themselves build a

systemic or situational policy of responsiveness,

following emerging needs. According to Kerr's

definition, systemic responsiveness is defined as the

ability of universities to be internally oriented,

responding to the direction and needs of a changing

society and production [5, p. 187-193]. At the same

time, the responsiveness of the education system is

closely related to the internal level of development of

human resources and the material and technical base

capable of responding to external challenges.

C. Argyris argues that effective organizations are

those that successfully integrate the needs of an

organization with the needs of individuals in them [6,

p. 431-432].

We will consider the roles of students within the

framework of the Stakeholder Map, taking into

account the influence and contribution, as well as

expectations and interests in three concentric areas:

1. The area of authority or responsibility, including

interested persons who are in conditions of vertical

subordination: students, obeying the Internal

Regulations and Academic Policy of the university,

should be able to openly declare their needs, to

participate fully, not formally, in decisions

concerning intra-university youth policy, issues of

education and upbringing. At the same time, it is

necessary to establish the responsibility of youth

leaders for their activities and the achievement of

their goals.

2. The area of direct influence includes interested

persons and organizations involved in the relationship

and exchange of tangible and intangible resources:

students take part in regional youth projects,

movements, and initiatives and enter into

communication with youth representatives from other

universities and regions. At the same time, an

essential condition is forming a clear civic position, a

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high legal, political, and religious culture, stable civil

law values, and the ability to communicate in a

multicultural environment.

3. An area of indirect influence in which relations are

established with the involvement of third parties

interested in obtaining support or resources: student

initiatives are supported by the authorized body in the

field of education of the Republic of Kazakhstan,

youth movements, and non-governmental

organizations of various levels.

Based on the stakeholder map, we can identify several

levels of responsiveness:

1. Responsiveness of educational programs of

universities both to the requirements of production

and fluctuations of the economy and to the needs of

the state as a whole, including the development of

socially significant qualities, patriotic education,

civic engagement, respect for the culture and

traditions of the people of Kazakhstan within the

cycle of general education disciplines and curatorial

hours;

2. Responsiveness of the university to the personal

needs of students, contributing to the realization of

their capabilities, the formation of a comfortable

socio-cultural learning environment;

3. Responsiveness of teaching staff, including those

acting as tutors of groups, to solving emerging

problems both in academic and extracurricular

activities, motivating students to personal

development, and maximizing their capabilities in all

areas (Project of UCT Social Responsiveness) [7];

4. Responsiveness of the university's infrastructure,

as in the field of creating a comfortable educational

environment including people with special

educational needs, so as providing psychological

assistance and support to students.

How can the concept of a responsive university be

implemented?

The responsiveness of curricula contributes to

broader changes throughout the system with an

emphasis on changing the needs of students and

population groups.

Systemic and academic responsiveness respects the

“social contract”, focused on the needs of various

stakeholders inside and outside the institution of

higher education. The responsiveness of curricula is

based on communication channels between the

internal structures of universities and society,

providing social contract strength. The term “social

responsiveness” includes all forms of interaction

between higher education and external non-academic

audiences. Following the realities of Kazakh

education, in this case, we can talk about the

development of civic participation, including the

social work of students.

Students interact with external audiences in four

different ways:

• Professional practices as part of the official

curriculum;

• Volunteer and social activities, including

ecological projects;

• Participation in cultural events;

• Daily communications.

All of these forms should be supported by the

university, as they provide students with the

opportunity to participate in solving real-life

problems and, thereby, potentially help to promote a

commitment to critical and active citizenship.

An essential feature of a responsive university should

be not only a sensitive response to the needs of

stakeholders, including the social needs of students,

but the possibility of forming these needs in the long

term based on a dialogue with stakeholders.

Universities need to promote the long-term

perspective necessary for social and economic

development and participation in society.

4 CONCLUSIONS

In conditions of constant economic and social

changes in society, university graduates should, in

addition to professional competencies, possess such

formed skills of critical thinking, communication in a

multicultural environment, stable socio-cultural and

civil-legal values, and show an active civic position

based on a deep understanding of the political and

socio-economic situation in the country.

The study results allow us to conclude that

universities, in addition to focusing on meeting the

educational needs of students within the framework

of student-centered learning, also need to focus on

improving the quality of conditions for the

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development of the socio-cultural potential of

students. This goal can be achieved through the

implementation of the "responsive university" model,

characterized by high sensitivity to the extracurricular

needs of students. Within the framework of a

responsive university, a high level of quality and

feedback of vertical communication flows “student-

administration”, “low power distance” in the

implementation of communication, support for

student initiatives at a non-formal level should be

provided to ensure students' confidence that their

needs will be heard and promote. At the same time,

special attention should be paid to increasing the

motivation of students to engage in the business

processes of the university and to participate in

various clubs, universities' cultural and scientific

events voluntarily. These conditions are not only

aimed at the effective realization of the potential of

the studying youth as a social group but also at

avoiding “burnout” - the refusal of students to

participate anywhere for reasons of fatigue, excessive

workload, or uncertainty about the effectiveness of

their actions. Thus, the implementation of the concept

of a “responsive university” will contribute to

increasing the self-awareness and civic engagement

of future specialists.

The results obtained will be used in practice for

further research of conditions for the development of

the socio-cultural potential of youth in the context of

higher education in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

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overview

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