Rafīqa Nurtazīna

Rafika Bekenkyzy Nurtazina (; 8 March 1921 - 1 April 2013) was a Kazakh and Soviet school teacher who was named as a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1968.

Early life and education Rafika Nurtazina was born on 8 March 1921 in village No. 6 of the Pavlodar district of the Semipalatinsk province of the Kirghiz ASSR (now the Pavlodar district of the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan). Nurtazina was Kazakh by nationality. Her parents were the merchant Nurtaza Bekenuly Bekenov and the housewife Zulbanu Abdulkaimovna Kurmanova.

In 1939, Nurtazina graduated from high school and entered Kazakh State University named after Sergey Kirov. At the same time, since 1939, she worked as a teacher of Kazakh and German at the Russian school No. 30 in Almaty. When the World War II began, Nurtazina was forced to interrupt her studies to replace the teacher who had gone to the front and teach at school No. 75. After the war, she resumed her studies at the philological faculty of the Kazakh Women's Pedagogical Institute in Almaty, and since 1947 she began working as a teacher of Russian language and literature at the Kazakh-Russian Women's School No. 12.

Career In 1949, Nurtazina graduated from the institute, having received the specialty of Russian language and literature teacher. Under the leadership of Nurtazina, the school became the foremost in the Kazakh SSR. The experience of the teaching staff of the school and the innovation of its director were highly appreciated by the world pedagogical community.

By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 1 July 1968, Nurtazina was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal for great merits in education and communist education.

In 1973, School No. 12 became the first school in the republic with an in-depth study of the Kazakh language, and in 1984 it was recognized as one of the best in Kazakhstan. In 1974, Nurtazina defended her Ph.D. thesis in Moscow on the topic Ways to Activate Cognitive Interests in Teaching the Russian Language in a Kazakh School. In 1987, Nurtazina again began to work as a teacher, at the same time being a member of the scientific methodological councils of the USSR Ministry of Education (1981-1987) and the Ministry of Education of the Kazakh SSR. Nurtazina retired in 1991. Being retired, Nurtazina came to the Kazakh radio, where she taught the Kazakh language for three years. Honored Teacher of the Kazakh SSR (1966) Excellence in Public Education of the Kazakh SSR (1956) Honorary citizen of the city of Almaty (1994)