Astana (TDI): The number of international students in Kazakhstan hit 31,500 last year, marking an all-time high as the country strives to attract 100,000 students from abroad by 2028.
For the first time, the number of students coming to Kazakhstan from Asia surpassed that of students from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries of the former Soviet Union, with the largest cohorts coming from India, Russia and China.
The influx of over three thousand Russian students reflects a reversal of the traditional flow of students from Kazakhstan into Russia, as the Russia-Ukraine war continues to reshape Eurasia’s global education landscape, authorities said.
A major feature of Kazakhstan’s internationalization strategy is to attract investment from foreign universities, with about 40 TNE partnerships established in the past three years, including five branch campuses.
“We’re trying to work for the wider region of greater Eurasia where more than half of the 2 billion people are under the age of 25,” Sayasat Nurbek, Minister for Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, said.
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He added that Kazakhstan was experiencing a “demographic explosion” increasing the demand for higher education.
The latest partnership – which Nurbek termed the “gem of gems” – was established between Colorado School of Mines and Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan to develop NU’s research capacity and graduate program, and to recruit faculty to work at the campus.
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Among the institutions establishing branch campuses are Cardiff University, Coventry University and De Montfort University in the United Kingdom, as well as Woosong University in Turkestan and KAIST, South Korea’s first public research university.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
