A Study On Higher Education In Kazakhstan

Education is an important basis to measure a country’s power, and higher education play a irreplaceable role in improving national overall cultural level and the potential of national education, science and technology development. Kazakhstan’s education got a rapid development during Soviet times and had been in the front row at the time in central Asia, but the higher education got a limited development. In1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, Kazakhstan inherited the Soviet’s educational system. In the independent Kazakhstan, some new changes have happened in the field of politics and economics, under the certain circumstances, the government conducted a series of reforms in the field of education in order that the higher education can meet the needs of national economy, training high-level professional talents for the state and the society better and achieve the integration of international higher education.This paper studies mainly on the higher education in Kazakhstan, with some researches on the problems of the development, reforms and international cooperation of higher education. Considering the lack of professional study on higher education in Kazakhstan, the author expects that we could have a great knowledge of higher education in Kazakhstan, thus, encouraging the educational exchange and cooperation between the countries within the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organization.This paper can be divided into three parts:the first part focuses on Kazakhstan’s higher education before the independence, separately introducing the educational status in the Tsarist Russia time and the period from the October Revolution to collapse of the Soviet Union. The second part mainly introduces Kazakhstan’s higher education reforms, including the background, objects, measures and the influences of higher education reforms. The third part is concentrating on the current situation of higher education in Kazakhstan, including legislative foundation, educational ideology, systems, universities, teachers and students, international cooperation etc.