The most competitive countries (used as comparators throughout this chapter) all have strong technician-level tertiary education systems at the level of ISCED 5B (Tertiary B).
Absence of pathways through the education system. As discussed in Section Two, Kazakhstan lacks effective pathways from TVE to tertiary education and hence has very poor incentives for lifelong learning which should be an important social and economic goal for the education system. Anecdotal evidence suggests that graduates of the TVE system do not receive recognition for their qualifications and are required to begin all over again if they enroll in higher education. The project team considers that this is an overarching issue for the entire education system as it is also unclear how the move to 12-year secondary education will affect these pathways.
Strengthening information about career opportunities and the labour market. As noted above, it is not clear who collects, analyses and disseminates labour market information and makes this information easily available to school graduates and to their parents.
Relevance of programmes for the labour market and for research and development. It is unclear what, if any, the influence of the current labour market has on either the curriculum or on the accreditation process, both of which could be made substantially more relevant by the involvement of employers. Evidence cited by the World Bank (WB, 2012) mentions that Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes do not appear to be developing the intellectual or organisational competencies needed for top quality research work. There is a general concern about the quality of English language training at all levels throughout the system.
Priority Three: To build capacity for internationally recognised research and to
priority will be discussed later. These policies established to support research reflect the President’s 2050 vision emphasising the need for Kazakhstan to make scientific improvements in R&D and applied science in order to contribute to the country’s competitiveness.
ACTIONS ALREADY TAKEN OR ABOUT TO BE TAKEN
Kazakhstan higher education has several initiatives underway to build capacity in order to compete globally in research and innovation and to integrate education, innovation and research in HEIs.
The primary strategies include: i) increasing funding for and the capacity of research universities to compete globally, while beginning to differentiate the missions of other institutions to focus on national, regional and local research or educational needs; ii) reorienting the Bolashak Scholarship Programme toward graduate studies (Master’s and doctoral candidates) to study in international universities; and iii) developing of Nazarbayev University as a national model for the development of research capacity.
In addition, Kazakhstan has taken a number of important steps to strengthen its capacity for research and innovation. These include:
• the scheduled establishment of one to two research and ten innovation universities;
• clarification of the mission of research universities to focus on;
• generation of knowledge, efficient technology transfer to economy;
• wide range of fundamental and applied research; and
• development of a system for training highly qualified staff.
Focus on Research and Innovation
Government spending on R&D in Kazakhstan has been growing over the last 5 years, with an overall increase of 4% from 2007 to 2011, even with declines in spending from 2010 and 2011. The government has also shifted more R&D spending to HEIs - between 2007 and 2011 R&D spending at HEIs has increased by 70% or USD 19 million, with declining R&D expenditures for other institutions. See Table 23 below showing changes in research expenditures in US dollars.
Table 23. Expenditures for R&D (millions of US Dollars)**
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Growth
2007- 2011
% increase 2007- 2011 Government
expenditures
$68.27 $73.20 $98.31 $81.00 $70.92 2.66 4%
Higher education institutions expenditures
$27.28 $33.85 $38.78 $37.71 $46.48 19.20 70%
Government expenditures on other institutions*
$40.98 $39.35 $59.52 $43.29 $24.44 -16.54 -40%
Source: Republic of Kazakhstan, Agency of Statistics (2012), www.stat.kz Nauka i Innovatsionnaya Deyatel’nost’
Kazakhstana. 2007-2011. Statisticheskiy Sbornik. Agentstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike. Astana, 2012.
www.stat.kz
Notes: *This is a calculation of how much R&D funding is spent on non-HEIs (total government expenditures subtracting expenditures for HEIs). **Based on conversion of KZT to USD at a rate of 0.006547 on 7/5/2013.
International Comparisons
Even with the increased investment, Kazakhstan spends much less than its international competitors on R&D at HEIs, as a percent of GDP. Total research expenditures in Kazakhstan (HEIs and research institutes) are approximately .038% of GDP, with a goal to increase research spending to 1 per cent by 2015. (See Figure 4).81
Figure 4. Spending on R&D as a percent of GDP
Source: OECD (2013), Education at a Glance 201, Table B2.4 for international data other than Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan spending on R&D from the Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan GDP data from World Bank.
Note: In the figure above the amounts for OECD countries represent the total amount of R&D money spent at tertiary education institutions. However, the amount for Kazakhstan includes both government spending on R&D at universities and at other non-academic institutes.
Capital Expenditure for Research
Capital expenditures for R&D have been expanding rapidly, growing more than 300% in the last 5 years. It is unknown how much of this is for development of new facilities or renovation and improvements in existing facilities.
Table 24. Domestic expenditures for R&D: capital expenditures
Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Growth
2007-2011
% increase 2007-2011
mln. KZT 1 098 1 076 451 1 352 5 144 4 046 368%
Million USD
$7.19 $7.04 $2.95 $8.85 $ 33.68 $26.49 368%
Source: Republic of Kazakhstan. The Agency of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan. www.stat.kz Nauka i Innovatsionnaya Deyatel’nost’ Kazakhstana. 2007-2011. Statisticheskiy Sbornik. Agentstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike. Astana, 2012. www.stat.kz
81 Note: Although Denmark and Japan are included in other international comparisons there was no comparable data for those two countries on this metric.
According to those the project team interviewed, Kazakhstan continues to have a far higher percentage of applied research and lower percentage in R&D, compared to international norms (Nazarbayev University, 2013).
Table 25. Per cent of R&D in different kinds of research, Kazakhstan and international norms
Type Current per cent Norm for comparison
Fundamental research 21 20
Applied research 71 30
R&D 8 50
Source: Nazarbayev University. Presentation to project team, February 2013, slide 3
In order to increase policy leadership for research, Kazakhstan has initiated a number of national level review commissions, including the Supreme Scientific-Technical Commission chaired by the Prime Minister, National Research Councils to establish national priorities for research, and the State Center for Scientific and Technical Expertise under the MES to oversee the international peer review process for research publications.
In terms of supporting the higher education research enterprise, Kazakhstan provides funding for research in three categories: i) “basic” or maintenance grants to research organisations; ii) “grants”
(competitively awarded research grants); and iii) programme-targeted funding to support research programme development (Nazarbayev University, 2013). Data are incomplete in terms of the level of support for each of these activities.
Bolashak Scholarship Programme
A key priority for Kazakhstan is the development of the human resources necessary for competitive research. The Bolashak Scholarship Programme, instituted by the President in 1993, provides scholarships to students for study in international universities. Until recently, the scholarships were available for those interested in earning Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees. According to the 2050 State Programme on Education, in 2010, the Bolashak Scholarship Programme was redesigned so that, “100% of the Bolashak Programme fellows will study in Master’s and Ph.D.
degree programmes or will participate in research internships for the duration of one term to one academic year82”.
Since 1993, more than 7 000 Kazakhstani students have received the Bolashak Scholarship. During 1994-2010, nearly 3 000 students successfully completed their Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. degrees, and a third of them graduated from U.S. universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Yale.83 The most popular countries for study are the United Kingdom (42%), United States (24%), Russia (7%) and other countries (27%) (MES, 2012b).
Nazarbayev University
Nazarbayev University (NU), formerly a non-profit joint stock company, was reorganised in 2010 into an independent, autonomous entity by the “Decree of the Government” of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev University aspires to be one of the top ranked universities worldwide
82 Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA, Bolashak Program http://www.kazakhembus.com/page/bolashak-program
83 http://www.kazakhembus.com/page/bolashak-program
in linking innovation, research and teaching, as well as and serving as a model for other research universities in the country. To achieve this ambitious goal, a set of unique partnerships was established with leading universities around the world. These collaborative partners were selected based on excellence in various disciplines of academic study (see Appendix P) for partners for each school at the NU).
While Nazarbayev University is the national model for research and partnerships, other Kazakh universities are also engaged in international co-operation to enhance their research capacity. In 2011, approximately 1 717 foreign scientists and consultants from leading universities around the world partnered with Kazakh universities (MES, 2012b).
Improved research productivity is demonstrated by evidence that the proportion of universities participating in research projects increased from 33% in 2010 to 67% in 2012. The number of international publications tripled in recent years increasing from 305 in 2005 to 1 023 in 2012 (MES, 2013).
The most recent data show that in 2011, there were 1 337 Ph.D. students enroled in Kazakh universities, with the greatest concentration majoring in social sciences, education, economics and business and engineering and technology, while substantially fewer were enroled in agricultural science and veterinary medicine (MES, 2012b).
Problems that need to be addressed
A potential barrier to the national goals for integrating research, innovation and education is the bifurcation of the research enterprise between HEIs and research institutes. While additional funding this past year flowed to HEIs, a larger proportion of the research budgets remain in the research institutes, sponsored by non-education ministries. Limited resources result in research funds spread across many organisations, thereby potentially compromising the quality of research overall.
Another barrier to progress discussed with the project team is the heavy teaching workloads of academic staff that can limit time for research, as well as time to foster linkages between education and research, in order to realise the research-innovation-education linkages as described in the National Report (MES, 2012b).
Other problems that should be addressed include:
• inadequate integration of education, research and industry (role of research universities, innovation clusters);
• lack of a commercialisation infrastructure for researchers (institutions, training innovation managers, cultivating entrepreneurship culture);
• the need to continue to train, attract, retain best research minds (repatriation of Kazakh researchers from abroad, inviting international researchers, attracting young Bolashak scholars, international collaborations);
• the low level of private demand for R&D in the country (development of start-ups, SMEs, support for innovation activities);
• the lack of an effective national innovation system (better co-ordination among the government agencies responsible for funding research and innovation in the country).