Kazakh Government to ensure rigid control over comfortable schools project – PM

At the traditional meeting of the Cabinet, Premier Bektenov cast doubt on whether the national project will be implemented in time, since construction process and allocation of land plots for schools in the regions are dragged out.

Minister of Enlightenment Gani Beisembayev, for his part, reported on the implementation of ‘Comfortable Schools’ national project. Funding for the project, which costs an estimated 2.3 trillion tenge, comes from the republican budget.

According to Minister Beisembayev, the ministry implements step-by-step control over the implementation of the national project weekly and biweekly.

He revealed the plan to put into service 369 schools for 740,000 seats in the next couple of years under the project. 2024 will see the commissioning of at least 217 ‘comfortable’ schools, while 152 more will be put into service in 2025.

All schools, in his words, will be constructed following a common standard with the use of local construction materials. It should be noted that of 369, 163 schools (or 44%) will be built in rural areas.

In order to create state-of-the-art schools and ensure safe educational process, the ministry has developed a necessary legal framework and introduced new requirements to the construction process. For instance, elementary school students will be taught in separate premises.

Video surveillance, alarm buttons and automatic door-locking systems will be installed in all ‘comfortable’ schools to ensure students’ safety.

The ministry will also make sure to take important steps towards creating a barrier-free environment for students with disabilities, vowed Beisembayev.

Potential principals and teachers of the comfortable schools will be put through rigorous selection process. On top of that, the ministry will explore the best practices used by the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools and other leading secondary education institutions countrywide to map out a new model of educational process.