Education

Education system

The education system in the Republic of Kazakhstan consists of the several education levels: 

• preschool education and training;
• primary education;
• basic secondary education;
• secondary education (general secondary education, technical and vocational education);
• post-secondary education;
• graduate education;
• post-graduate education.

The education system is supervised by the relevant ministries: Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Secondary education

Secondary education in Kazakhstan is compulsory and includes primary, basic secondary (9 grades) and general secondary (11 (12) grades) education. There is also a vocational and secondary vocational education.

Children aged 6 years old are admitted to the first grade of school. Education in schools of Kazakhstan is comprised of 3 levels: primary (1-4 grades), basic (5-9 grades) and senior (10-11 (12) grades). Educational programs are developed for comprehensive development of capabilities of the especially gifted students and are implemented in the specialized schools for gifted children.

Technical and vocational education

Technical and vocational education is aimed at training of qualified workers and middle-ranking specialists and is delivered in the academies, colleges and tertiary colleges based on the basic secondary and (or) general secondary education.

The technical and vocational education in the country is delivered in the 772 technical and vocational education organizations, of which 446 are public and 326 are private. The total amount of students in technical and vocational education organizations is 517.3 thousand people, of which 312 thousand people have studied under the state order.

The major tasks of technical and vocational education are the following:

- the training of qualified workers and middle-ranking specialists;

- expanding the coverage of free-of-charge technical and vocational education;

- increasing the target state order at the request of the enterprises (10 thousand people annually);

- increasing the amount of scholarships for students of technical and vocational education organizations;

• creating conditions for increasing the accessibility of technical and vocational education;
• improving financial stability and targeted support of technical and vocational education;
• improving corporate governance of technical and vocational education;
• organizing and developing social partnership in the system of technical and vocational education;
• creating equal conditions and barrier-free access for students with special educational needs;
• ensuring consistency and continuity between the levels of education;
• expanding international cooperation in the field of personnel training and re-training of in the technical and vocational education organizations.

In order to ensure the accessibility of technical and vocational education, since last year, the state order has been placed under the principle "money follows the student". Earlier the admission to the colleges was carried out according to the allocated places under the state order and currently the fellows could select the colleges and specialties as per their will. These measures ensure the transparency of state order distribution and admission of applicants to the colleges.

The applicants will be able to apply to the colleges through the Egov.kz portal or directly to the college. The applicants can choose up to 4 specialties and up to 4 colleges.

All the school graduates will be given an opportunity to undergo professional diagnostics through the education departments’ information systems. As a result, the applicants will get recommendations to select a particular specialty and be familiar with the datasheets of recommended industries.

The competition is conducted through the education departments’ information systems based on the diploma average score under required and vocation-related disciplines.

Also, the new mechanism is aimed at 100% coverage of the graduates with free-of-charge college tuition under highly demanded specialties.

Higher education

Currently, higher education in Kazakhstan is at the stage of dynamic development that is dictated by scientific and technological progress requirements. Recently, the republic has undertaken global measures to upgrade and reform the education through introducing top notch teaching methods and developing up-to-date infrastructure and providing full-fledged student support.

Higher education structure and study format

Today, the Kazakhstani higher education system in the context of the Bologna process parameters is of the following structure:

• Baccalaureate is higher educational programs intended for cohort study with awarded bachelor's degree under relevant specialty.
• Magistrate is postgraduate education programs intended for cohort study with awarded master's degree. Master's programs cohort study is based on two higher educational program directions:
  • A scientific and pedagogical direction with a study period of at least two years;
  • A discipline direction with a study period of at least one year.
• Doctorate is postgraduate educational programs intended for cohort study to be engaged in scientific, pedagogical and (or) professional activities, with the award of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree and discipline based doctoral degree. The doctorate is on the basis of two master's educational program directions:
  • a scientific and pedagogical direction with a study period of at least three years;
  • a discipline based direction with a study period of at least three years.

Today, the number of universities in the country is 120, of which national universities – 11, state – 29 (non-profit joint-stock companies), international university – 1, corporate universities – 16, private – 48, autonomous – 1 (Nazarbayev University), non-civilian – 14.