Kazakh graduates with high scores on the Unified National Testing (UNT) do not receive grants because they choose specialties without considering the needs of the economy. This was stated at a government meeting by Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek, as reported by infohub.kz.
According to him, grants for universities in Kazakhstan are only given for specialties that the state needs.
"If there is a personal desire to study a certain specialty, you can study on a paid basis, or you can study for free. If you want to study for free, then you need to align your wishes with the wishes of the state, because we must think in the context of economic development," he said.
Despite this, applicants continue to choose fields with minimal state funding. For example, this year only 200 grants were allocated for legal specialties, as the country does not need that many lawyers. Nevertheless, between 10,000 and 12,000 people are vying for them.
"The second aspect: we are a social state, so we have quotas. There are separate quotas for socially vulnerable groups of the population. They are not large in number, but they exist. And we must take care of those citizens who have unequal conditions," added Sayasat Nurbek.
Furthermore, universities themselves cannot admit too many students because their infrastructure cannot handle it.
"Universities say: 'I cannot teach that many students without losing quality.' Therefore, even private and national universities are starting to raise their scores very strictly," the minister concluded.
Earlier, Kursiv reported that Aimagambetov named unnecessary professions for which grants are given.