Main Barriers to Developing Innovational Activities of University Teachers in Kazakhstan

The relevance of studying the problem of university teacher’s barriers for innovative activities is due to modern requirements for the personality of an instructor in the field of higher education. This article is devoted to university teacher’s barriers to innovative activities. Currently, the main goal of innovations in the higher education is the harmonious development of personality, creative abilities of a person, as well as increasing the intellectual and innovative potential of the country. Innovations in education are the part of the process of acquiring innovative knowledge, skills and values by individual teachers. Therefore, the problems associated with the research on formation of innovative activities of a university teacher are of particular importance. To obtain the results of the study in this article, the following methods were used: theoretical (analysis and synthesis of scientific works of domestic and foreign authors on the research problems); empirical (questionnaires, pedagogical observation). An anonymous survey was conducted with teachers of Kazakhstan’s universities. The main goal was to identify barriers to the development of innovations by university teachers. The conducted survey revealed that there are certain barriers in innovative activities of university teachers. The study demonstrates that not all teachers are engaged in innovative activities and there are possible reasons behind that. Most of them are fear before innovations and old methods are more effective than new ones and others. The authors of the article came to conclusion that fruitful and successful work of tertiary teachers is one of the ways of overcoming barriers. Of particular importance is university teachers’ self-education and self-development, the desire for innovation, determination to achieve goals, as well as the ability to eliminate the causes of difficulties.