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EDUCATIONAL GRANTS IN KAZAKHSTAN: PRACTICE AND POTENTIAL IN THE CONTEXT OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
N.Zh.Sakhanova B. M. Suzhikova
Before we start describing the system of educational grants in Kazakhstan, we should note that they, as a rule, are issued with regard for an actual need for education of talented young people from among the disadvantaged population who are motivated for the long process of education, both formal (a college or a higher educational institution) and informal, supplementary. Thereby, the system of educational grants creates a stimulus for permanent self-education and improvement of one's professional skills in compliance with the challenges set by the postindustrial stage of development of our societies.
What kinds of educational grants exist in Kazakhstan? First of all, there is a state educational grant. This is a targeted sum of money provided to a student on the terms established by the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Annually, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan approves, on the basis of adopted rules, the State educational order for the training of specialists with a higher and postgraduate education, as well as with technical and secondary vocational education at educational institutions financed from the Republican budget. State grants are allocated for all levels of professional education, for the training of specialists with higher education, and for magisterial and doctoral postgraduate studies. The total number of students in Kazakhstan in 2013 amounted to 571,691 persons. A total of 131,919 persons, or 23.0% of the total number of students, are being educated at the expense of State educational grants. The majority of students study in Kazakhstan for a fee.
Apart from the State educational grant, there is the Bolashak International Stipend of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, founded in 1993 by Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N.A. Nazarbayev. The stipends issued since then have been for studies at the 200 best higher educational institutions located in 33 countries of the world. The program covers the tuition fee, a monthly stipend, and other costs, i.e. it essentially issues educational grants. Target educational grants render a substantial supports to youth from disadvantaged families, orphaned children and those in acute need. Such grants are provided by social funds being nongovernmental organizations. The most substantial support to the educational grants system is rendered by the BOTA social funds established by an intergovernmental agreement between three countries: Kazakhstan, the USA and Switzerland. Since 2009, the fund's Educational Grants Program has issued 841 grants for studying at Kazakh colleges and higher educational institutions, including 101 grants for orphans and 17 for especially disadvantaged grant holders. Out of 692 holders of grants issued in 2009-2012, 478 persons (70%) were the first children who got access to higher education in their families. Of these, 433 persons (91%) among them were the first ones in their families who got access to higher education, i.e. their parents did not have a secondary specialized or higher education. Thus, the educational grants
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issued by the BOTA funds carry out a vital social function in Kazakhstan: they provide access to professional education for youth from socially vulnerable population groups and afford a starting opportunity to use education as a "social lift" for a future successful professional career. Apart from the BOTA fund, other social funds function in Kazakhstan as well. They provide youth with support in the form of stipends, or issue special educational grants. In particular, there is the Erzhan Tatishev Fund, providing support to the best students of financial and economic specialties. Virtually every higher educational institution in Kazakhstan has also issued target educational grants to youth from disadvantaged families, orphans and disabled persons, alongside with a system of discounts.
As the practice of educational grants administering demonstrates, the grant holders are one of the most susceptible social groups in respect of "lifelong education" concepts, since they have to act under rigorous conditions of competition for a grant and they understand that it is not only necessary to get formal basic education, but to continue it.
The survey of the subject "Status and Development Level of Human Capital in Kazakhstan" performed by the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies (KISI of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan) detected that the majority of polled persons (68.7%) had limited access to education. They stated that they were unable to pay for their education. Less than a third of polled persons (30.7%) were capable of paying for inexpensive education. A total of 19.9% of those polled were in need of supplementary training (a refresher course or probation), while 24.5% stated they were in need of improving their professional skills. The results of the poll permitted the surveyors to formulate the following tasks, including those in respect of lifelong education: the development and implementation of the mechanisms of motivating employers and population for continuous professional training and skills improvement; forming a system of continuous professional training and skills improvement on the basis of higher educational institutions, training teaching personnel, and development of modern programs of studies and training technologies with regard for the needs of the Kazakh economy and the experience of developed countries; regulation of the population's monetary income and the cost of tuition at educational institutions with the goal of easing access to skills improvement and supplementary professional training for all the able-bodied population of the Republic.
It is important to note that the Government of Kazakhstan views the success of national educational system modernization as one of the key factors of success of the whole modernization process. Modernization of the educational system is restructuring the educational process with the goal of improving efficiency and accessibility of educational services, the restoration of logical ties between all types of "age" education as a comprehensive lift: pre-school, primary, secondary, vocational, higher and postgraduate education.
Kazakhstan belongs to the countries that signed the Memorandum on Lifelong Learning (LLL). This defines the following key concepts of the LLL: (1) provision of general and permanent access to education for mastering and improvement of knowledge-based skills: (2) significant enhancement of the level of investments into human resources; (3) the development of efficient methods of teaching and learning and the creation of an environment for the realization of all-
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embracing studies throughout one's life; (4) significant improvement of the mechanisms with whose help it is possible to understand and evaluate participation in education and its results; (5) improving access for every person to quality information, consulting and educational opportunities throughout his or her life; (6) making education as close as possible to the educatees at their residence places through using information and communication technologies.
At present, the State has carried out a significant amount of work in order to implement a number of measures provided by the Memorandum. In particular, within the framework of realization of the "Employment Road Map 2020", the program of the Ministry of Labor and Social Securities. The persons participating in this program are citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan (ethnic Kazakh repatriates), as a rule, unemployed or partially employed and financially disadvantaged. The categories of persons having priority right to participate in the program are as follows; (a) youth aged up to 29, including 11-year general education school graduates, graduates of technical and vocational, secondary, higher and postgraduate education within one year of completion of their studies; (b) persons brought up at orphanages, orphaned children and children deprived of parental care aged from 18 to 29; (c) disabled persons who have no counterindications against engagement in labor activities because of the state of their health (d) women residing in the country; (e) persons aged above 50 who have not yet reached pensionable age; (f) pensioners who retired before reaching the generally established age; (g) employees previously employed at jobs with hard or hazardous labor conditions; (h) persons discharged from the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan; (i) persons released from detention and compulsory medical treatment institutions. An important field of the "Employment Road Map 2020" program is education and employment assistance. The program participants are provided with the following types of state support: Consulting in the matters of professional education, employment and career guidance; studies at free supplementary education, vocational training and skills improvement courses; the provision of material aid for vocational training, search for appropriate job openings and assistance in employment, including employment at social jobs and youth practice; partial subsidizing of the salaries of those employed at social jobs; paying salaries to natural persons sent for youth practice. It is important to note that upon completion of professional training of a program participant, the employers provide him or her with employment under the social contract terms. Vocational training of the program participants is carried out both at the educational institutions of the Ministry of Education and Science, and at training centers at enterprises.
Thus, the realization of "lifelong education" concepts in Kazakhstan has a certain experience and a great potential because both the state and nongovernmental organizations and social funds work in that field.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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