In Kazakhstan, cases of repeated state grants being issued to expelled students have been identified. This was announced by member of the Supreme Audit Chamber Tolegen Kaskyn during a government hour in the Mazhilis, reports Todayinfo news agency.
According to him, the education system lacks centralized accounting of academic credits and funding for each student. "33 cases of repeated grants to expelled students totaling about 85 million tenge were identified. In addition, the state order is insufficiently linked to the real needs of the economy. In 2022, over 9,000 grants in priority areas remained unclaimed, including more than 6,000 in engineering specialties and about 3,000 in ICT," Kaskyn said.
"Every year, universities graduate about 20,000 IT specialists, but only 30% work in their field. This is a problem not only of the number of grants, but also of the quality of forecasting, programs, and communication with employers," he noted.
Kaskyn also addressed risks related to expulsions and mandatory work obligations. "In 2022–2024, about 24,000 students were expelled, with 19.6 billion tenge spent on their education. For 10,000 of them, there is no information in the system on the amount of grants used. Moreover, there is no full-fledged mechanism for refunding funds for expelled students. There is a scheme to avoid work obligations by enrolling in a master's program and then dropping out. The estimated damage for this category alone is 10.8 billion tenge. Another 1,500 graduates have the status of 'job seeker,' which formally counts as fulfilling obligations, but in practice does not provide specialists to the economy," he said.
According to his data, over the past five years, education spending has increased from 246 billion tenge to 472 billion tenge. The student population reached 625,000, and the volume of state educational orders exceeded 77,000 grants. The audit showed that despite a twofold increase in funding, the higher education system does not ensure a comparable increase in quality, transparency, and effectiveness.
