Emma Harden-Wolfson

In a recent interview with University World News, the Kazakh Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek was pulling no punches. This piece offers the clearest insights I’ve seen yet into how he sees the ever-shifting higher education landscape in Kazakhstan – and he doesn’t hold back on the criticism.

Kazakhstan has been bringing in new international branch campuses and signing agreements with foreign universities left, right and centre. This is all part of the country’s ongoing bid to boost higher education provision and bump up ‘quality’ (because international = higher quality in this equation).

In this flurry of activity, Nurbek has little time for local universities that aren’t prepared to step up to meet planned new quality standards (‘international’ standards, of course), going as far to say that

It will be painful in the beginning… and a certain number of local universities will shut down, will go bankrupt.

Ouch.

This is also the first time I’ve seen the critique turn inwards, with Nurbek conceding that rapidly expanding the number of international students has not been without difficulties.

Personally, I’ve received complaints from international students in Kazakhstan about poor treatment and huge administrative hurdles that are costing them emotionally and financially. I’ve also heard some pretty inelegant comments from Kazakhs (highly educated folk, at that) about international students, which this article (in Russian) touches on.

As a next step, the Minister promised an ombudsperson system to address students’ issues and has

acknowledged that international students faced some problems in Kazakhstan “mostly because they come in big numbers – Pakistan, India, some Chinese students.”

Hmmm.

We saw in 2024 what happened when mobs attacked international students (from South Asia) in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan where the volume of international students isn’t nearly as high as in Kazakhstan.

With the Minister suggesting that the current 35,000 international students could grow to 100,000 or more within the next five years, his focus must be on assuring that those students who choose to come to Kazakhstan are well looked after as well as getting a great education. This will involve efforts at all levels, from societal campaigns to reviewing visa policies (already underway) to institutional training.

Those were the two big things that jumped out for me, but there’s much more to the interview – and credit to Yojana Sharma at UWN for producing such a rich article – so do read the full piece at https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20260202154925187.