They say in Kazakhstan that political fi-gures who were active in the 1990s are coming back to power, a reference to people who received their posts thanks to te-levision commercials insisting that one should drink Pepsi and learn from the experience of the manufacturer’s country. Kairat Kelimbetov, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade, epitomizes the peak of this political renaissance. Practically fresh out of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (1999), back in his home country Kelimbetov found himself heading the Social and Economic Department, which received its directives only from the Presidential Administration. It was there Kelimbetov worked out his well-known strategy for Kazakhstan’s development until 2030 that eventually became Kazakhstan’s Roadmap, meant to make this country one of the world’s 50 prospering and competitive states. In 1993, when President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan was advised by the legendary Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, to come up with the initiative of government scholarships for gifted Kazakh youth, so they could enroll in the world’s most prestigious universities, all hell broke loose in Kazakhstan’s parliament, with MPs shouting about the lack of payroll and pension funds. In the end, 20 such students were granted this scholarship. Before long, there were hundreds, then several thousand such recipients per annum. All these people studied and lived at the expense of their government. In return, they had to spend five years doing the jobs assigned them by their government. The dividends expected from this kind of investment in human capital started coming before long, when fresh M.A.’s in business management, state administration, economics, and law were enlisted in the reform-building process as newly appointed officials in charge of reforms in the economic, taxation, and pension sectors. “We had to run on the edge of the blade; we did it because we weren’t biased or burdened with past experiences; because we didn’t fear what lay in the offing,” recalls Kelimbetov.
“Today, these 1990s’ graduates are at the head of our ministries, among our deputy ministers; [some of them] preside over governmental committees; [others are] bank managers and company CEOs,” says Sayasan Nurbek, currently in charge of the International Programs Center that ma-nages Nazarbayev’s International Bolashak (lit., Future) Scholarship. He once received this scholarship and owes it his current status of an expert on international law and polyglot.
This center has made direct contracts with the world’s 65 leading institutions of higher learning (with the other side being only too happy to sign these contracts, knowing that Kazakhstan would pay the highest tuition fees). Of course, the scholarship recipients are selected on a competitive basis, after taking anonymous tests. Those passing these tests are required to sign statements denying the right to have their personal data officially protected. This data is promptly received by officials in Astana, along with each such student’s progress report. Similar reporting procedures are kept after graduation and in the course of employment, with every scholarship recipient having to send a professional progress report every six months. Some of these terms and conditions have been liberalized over the past several years, allowing such graduates to get jobs in the private sector, also with foreign companies — provided Kazakhstan has an interest there — and with international organizations. In fact, the whole Bolashak project has exceeded the managerial training boundaries, currently offering enrolment oppoortunities to creative individuals. This year, a blind girl will attend piano classes in Italy.
Apart from professional training, the scholarship recipients return from abroad with tangible social assets, namely personal contacts that are sure to play their role in the future. “Even now any of our graduates can call his former classmates who work for the European Commission in Brussels. They also keep in touch using Facebook,” says Nurbek, humbly leaving unmentioned his experience as an assistant to a US congressman, which makes him an expert on backstage lobbying practices.
Several years ago, it was decided “upstairs” that the time had come to start preparing cadres that would meet the world’s highest standards while trained in Kazakhstan. As usual, this initiative came from President Nazarbayev, and so a university was built in the capital city, in record time, and named after the head of state. Construction turned out to be the easiest part of the project.
Kadisha Dairova, the university’s vice president in charge of academic policy, said the task wasn’t to build another branch of some or other prestigious institution of higher learning, considering that the Nazarbayev University’s creative team was made of Bolashak scholarship graduates. She added that the university currently has three schools (faculties) specializing in engineering, science and technologies, and humanities. A medical school will start functioning in three years, owing to the effective collaboration with Duke University (US). Apart from the Bologna process, the university curriculum provides for research aimed at making innovative discoveries, in view of President Nazarbayev’s task set when founding this institution, to the effect that there should be Nobel Prize winners among the graduates. This statement had nothing to do with voluntarism. Rather, with an elixir-of-life-quest project launched by Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. At present, Nazarbayev University has a student body of 408, with 549 at the preparatory department. All of them are receiving instruction free of charge; all of them have dorm accommodations and four meals a day. The teaching staff is made up of lecturers representing various ethnic groups (with each having had to win a severe competition). The university administration hopes to have Ukrainian lecturers on payroll.
Just as I was exploring the Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan’s State Secretary Kanat Saudabayev, presiding over a meeting of the governmental commission responsible for personnel training abroad, told those present: “Our President’s Bolashak Program has carried out a very important mission, providing our sovereign Kazakhstan with the first batch of top-notch specialists whose respective qualifications meet every international standard.”
