Kazakhstan is aiming to become an education powerhouse in Central Asia but efforts must also ensure young people have sufficient access to opportunities that match their skill sets amid the country’s rapid economic transformation, experts have said.
Educators and advocates added that further collaboration with Hong Kong and mainland Chinese universities was in the pipeline, with growing demand for specialists who understood the business environments of both Kazakhstan and China.
The comments were made at a panel discussion at the South China Morning Post’s China Conference: Central Asia 2026 in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. The session addressed how the region – which has a young population, with an average age below 27 years – was building the talent needed to match its ambitions.
Nazarbayev University in Astana was strengthening its position as a leading research institution in Central Asia, president Professor Waqar Ahmad noted, just as Kazakhstan was working towards its goal of becoming a regional education hub.
He stressed the importance of building a broader ecosystem that could keep talent at home.
“If you look at education hubs, whether it’s London, New York or the UAE [United Arab Emirates], it isn’t just quality education. It’s the broader ecosystem,” he said.
“Are there opportunities for [students] to take a job there, even for a short period of time, to enhance their skills before they go back to their home countries? I would say that Hong Kong is there, Kazakhstan is working towards it, and [mainland] China is somewhere in the middle.”
Ahmad said Kazakhstan was “working very hard” to attract foreign students and had managed to draw nearly 40,000, beating its original target.
He added that Nazarbayev University had been expanding strategic partnerships with leading global institutions, including a dual-degree programme with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and was holding negotiations with Polytechnic University and other leading universities.
Ahmad said 88.2 per cent of the university’s graduates worked in Kazakhstan.
“That doesn’t happen accidentally. It doesn’t happen because they don’t have options; they’re highly, highly employable. It happens because they see a future for themselves and their families inside Kazakhstan,” he said.
Katarzyna Wawiernia, the UN Development Programme’s resident representative in Kazakhstan, said the country needed education that provided young people with the skills matching where it was heading, along with meaningful economic opportunities.
“A young population does not automatically become an economic dividend,” she said.
“It becomes a dividend when education, skills, investment and productive job creation move together – and when young women and men, including those outside the major cities, can actually access those opportunities.”
She said women and rural communities should not be left behind as Kazakhstan bred the new generation of artificial intelligence and tech talent.
“That means investing not only in digital infrastructure, but in local skills ecosystems – connecting universities and colleges, employers, local government, entrepreneurs and young people,” she said.
Dr Chan Young Bang, founder and president of KIMEP University in Almaty, argued that quality education was the best investment for the country. The university was set up in 1992 during Kazakhstan’s transition to independence to train leadership and business professionals for the modern market economy.
He said the private university, which teaches fully in English, had recruited highly qualified faculty members and had trained graduates ranging from former prime ministers to deputy provincial ministers.
“The return on investment is the highest. [The graduates] are the backbone of Kazakhstan. They are going to lead in Kazakhstan,” Bang said.
Gulnar Shaimergenova, founder and CEO of the China Studies Centre in Kazakhstan, meanwhile, highlighted the immense opportunities for locals as the collaboration between the country and China grew.
With growing demand for such talent, she said people should not only master the language but also learn how to understand and deal with the systems on both sides. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
