Number of secondary school graduates reduced by 24% in five years - Ministry of Education

14:54, 19 August 2009

ASTANA. August 19. KAZINFORM /Serik Sabekov/ Over the last five years the number of secondary school graduates has reduced by 24% in the republic, official spokesperson of the Kazakh Ministry of Education and Science Serik Irsaliyev has said at a weekly briefing today.

"There are many reasons for this, but first of all it is connected with a big number of school students who prefer to study at vocational-technical colleges and do not continue study at schools", s. Irsaliev explained.

Thus, according to him, 17.2% of youth aged 14-24 get vocational technical education to date.

"In Russia this figure makes 33%, in Japan - 30%, in Korea - 48%", he said.

As for Kazakhstan, this index varies depending on the regions. For example, vocational-technical education is popular mostly among Almaty youth - 28%, in Mangystau - 26% and in Astana - 25%. The least index is observed in Almaty oblast - 8.7%, South Kazakhstan oblast - 11% and Akmola oblast - 11.7%.

At present there are 866 vocational-technical educational institutions countrywide, where more than 610 thousand students get education which can be compared with the number of university students - 630 thousand people.

The most popular specialties in vocational-technical colleges are "repair and exploitation of transport", "information systems" and "organization of transportation and traffic control'.

As is known, there was adopted a Program on development of technical and vocational education for 2008-2012 realization of which costs more than KZT 58 bln.

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