Kazakhstan to make higher education more accessible - expert

"Over the past 14 months Kazakhstan has made a number of fundamentally important decisions for the development of the country. The process of the Third Modernization has started, the Constitutional Reform has been carried out, two large-scale programs - Rukhani Janghyru and Digital Kazakhstan are being implemented, new opportunities for the country's development in the conditions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have been determined.

Announced within the walls of the Parliament, the presidential social initiatives are a part of and a follow-up of the measures taken by the government in terms of modernization of Kazakhstan's economy, politics and public conscience, on the one hand.

On the other hand, the new state-of-the-nation address established the change in the role and status of social policy," Ms Karatayeva said.
According to the expert, up to now Kazakhstan has made the economic capacity build-up the cornerstone of its policy. During the First and the Second Modernization, the development of social sector has been regarded as a result of economic reforms.

"The country is implementing a number of state and sectoral programs with a special focus on social sector. Now we see the social policy as one of the drivers of Kazakhstan's economic development. Each of President's five social initiatives can have a multiplicative effect and become a driver of economic growth. One of the measures taken by the Government in this respect is the promotion of the cult of knowledge in Kazakhstan. Given the growing demand of Kazakhstan's economy in highly skilled staff capable of working in the conditions of the Fourth Revolution, the Government will do its best to make higher education more accessible," Ms Karatayeva noted.

It is to be recalled that in his Address to the nation on March 5 President Nursultan Nazarbayev put forward a number of social initiatives, including creating new housing opportunities for each family, reducing the tax burden to increase the wages of low-paid workers, improving the accessibility and quality of higher education and improving the living conditions of Kazakhstani students, expanding microcredit, and ensuring further gasification of the country.