At the government session chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alikhan Smailov, new approaches to the development of education and science were considered.

“Our main task is to ensure the general access of the population to quality education at all its levels. At the initiative of the Head of State, 2022 has been declared the Year of Children. It is necessary to fill it with serious development and education events,” Smailov said.

The Head of Government noted that in preschool education, quality assessment tools should be strengthened and indicators of early childhood development generally accepted in the world should be introduced. In secondary education, the main emphasis should be placed on equalizing the quality of education between the city and the countryside, developing the functional literacy of schoolchildren, and comprehensively educating the individual.

The Prime Minister instructed the akimats, the Ministry of Education and Science, to attract teachers to regions with a shortage of personnel, within the framework of the Special Program for Social Support for Teachers, to provide for measures for additional payments, housing, compensation for utilities.

Alikhan Smailov noted the need to work to increase the number of out-of-school organizations within walking distance, free school clubs, sports clubs, yard clubs.

“The system of vocational education should be further reformed, its quality, approaches and material and technical support should be radically changed. Everywhere to establish patronage of enterprises over colleges, which should be attractive not only for young people, but also for employers, investors, should offer not only traditional, but also short-term training programs,” the Head of Government said.

The Prime Minister instructed to take into account the shortage of blue-collar specialists when forming the state order, based on the needs in different regions and sectors of the economy.

“The most important thing is that graduates of colleges and universities should be in demand in the labor market. It is the demand in the labor market at the moment and its long-term forecast for the future that are the main factor in the training of personnel,” Smailov emphasized.

The Head of Government instructed to speed up work on rebooting the system of higher education, first of all, higher technical education, to take specific measures to open branches and campuses of well-known universities.

To expand the access of young people to higher education, the volume of state orders will be increased, incl. for students of the western regions, it is planned to allocate an additional 10,000 grants in technical specialties. When distributing the state order in the field of higher education through grants, the specifics of the regions and the need for personnel will be taken into account.

The Prime Minister instructed to provide for a set of measures for the priority development of technical sciences, modernization of scientific infrastructure by creating a single platform E-lab, expanding basic funding for science.

The Ministry of Education and Science was instructed to update the National Project “Quality Education “Educated Nation”, together with the Ministries of National Economy and Finance, to ensure that the draft Government Action Program for 2022 includes measures to create a Unified Digital Base for the Order of Children in Kindergartens, the adoption of the Concept of Educational work, the Unified National Portal of Additional Education.

The Head of Government instructed to prepare before Feb. 10, 2022, the draft Comprehensive plan for the development of enterprise patronage over colleges, until Feb. 7, 2022, to present the Roadmap for opening branches of leading foreign universities.

“Together with industry government agencies, ensure priority training of scientific personnel in the technical direction, incl. as part of the allocation of grants for young scientists and annual internships in leading foreign scientific centers,” summed up Smailov.