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Member of Parliament Bakytzhan Bazarkhan has brought to light significant issues within Kazakhstan's higher education sector, highlighting potential financial misconduct and conflicts of interest that could involve billions of tenge.

Financial Irregularities in Education

During a government session, Bazarkhan pointed out a lack of full integration between databases and state platforms in the education system. This deficiency hinders the government's ability to automatically and effectively monitor student enrollment, grant distribution, and the utilization of budget funds. Consequently, this opens the door for double funding, payments for students who have dropped out, and various illicit schemes.

According to the data presented by Bazarkhan, financial violations within the system amount to 4.4 billion tenge, while inefficient use of funds has reached 12.6 billion tenge. Additionally, budget expenditures and missed profits total 1.5 billion tenge. A further 30.3 billion tenge in budget funds were spent inefficiently.

Conflicts of Interest in Accreditation

The Member of Parliament specifically addressed the accreditation process for higher education institutions. He believes this procedure, intended to verify educational quality, often becomes a mere formality lacking sufficient oversight.

Bazarkhan identified potential conflicts of interest as a primary concern, suggesting that in some cases, universities are being reviewed by entities with close ties to them. This raises questions about the objectivity of the accreditation process.

"ENUP 'ARQA' accreditation agency has entered into a contract in a situation of conflict of interest. The agency accredits the university, while the spouse of the rector of ENUP named after Gumilyov is a member of the 'ARQA' accreditation council. Can we trust such accreditation?" Bazarkhan questioned.

He stated that such situations cast doubt on the meaning and reliability of the independent evaluation process for higher education institutions. "Many procedural violations are related to conflicts of interest. Lobbying for affiliated firms is becoming the norm, and accreditation is often carried out formally, without proper oversight," he emphasized.

This is according to information reported by the Infohub.kz news agency.