00:00Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30...and the wider Central Asia region, connecting with Europe and beyond.
00:34Kazakhstan has been part of the European Higher Education Area for 15 years.
00:38After joining the Bologna process in 2010, it began aligning its university standards with Europe,
00:44improving mobility, degree recognition and quality.
00:47Now, with demand for higher education rising across Central Asia,
00:51Kazakhstan is accelerating transnational education by inviting global universities to open campuses on its soil.
00:58In the past three years alone, nearly 40 transnational education partnerships have been launched,
01:03including five university branch campuses.
01:05Western universities are already in active collaboration with Kazakhstani institutions,
01:10some with campuses open or underway.
01:12Leading the way are British universities, followed by major U.S. institutions.
01:17Kazakhstan plans to open 34 more foreign university branches by 2029,
01:21aiming to increase its international student body nearly five-fold,
01:25from 31,500 today to 150,000.
01:30Of the current foreign students, nearly 40% come from India, mostly in recognized medical programs.
01:36For the first time, Asian students outnumber those from the post-Soviet space.
01:40And in a striking reversal, more Russians are now studying in Kazakhstan than the other way around.
01:46To understand what's driving the shift, we spoke to the person leading the country's education transformation,
01:52Minister of Science and Higher Education, Sayasat Nurbek.
01:57So we had very clear vision.
02:00One, bringing good, big partnerships,
02:03and then try to attract as many foreign students as possible.
02:07Second, research is becoming huge on our agenda.
02:10A lot of these great universities now have access to critical minerals, for example.
02:16And so we are launching several joint research centers
02:19in critical minerals enrichment and mining and metallurgy.
02:23How are international and domestic students supported
02:26in their entrepreneurship and deep tech development?
02:30Every single university student in Kazakhstan
02:33will have to go for AI courses,
02:35get a certificate out of 650,000 students.
02:38Over 4,000 students already have certificates.
02:42Then we're launching a $100 million seed fund
02:44just to fund AI startups of these college students and faculty members.
02:49And then we're going to go through AI entrepreneurship module.
02:53And so every single student will have a possibility
02:56to become what we now call Unicorns,
02:58a one-person, billion-dollar company,
03:01a founder with full support at every level,
03:05incubation, acceleration, and basic learning.
03:09What results are you seeing
03:10in aligning graduates with the global labor market?
03:15We'll have to wait for the first batch of graduates.
03:18And we, so far, so good.
03:20We have Nazarbayev University.
03:22We have De Montfort University.
03:24And their graduates are really good quality.
03:26I mean, I would say they comply with any international demand.
03:29About 70% of these students,
03:32they go and hire by international companies,
03:35global companies, big four companies.
03:38Some of them pursue their academic careers in top universities,
03:41best Ivy League, best Russell Group,
03:44best research-intensive universities in the world
03:46for their master's programs, PhD programs.
03:49They stand up to any international standard
03:52given by large companies, Fortune 500 companies.
03:56Well, Mr. Minister,
03:57it was such a pleasure having you on our program today.
03:59Thank you for carving out the time
04:01out of your busy schedule for us.
04:03Thank you.
04:04Thank you for having me.
04:07Private companies are also stepping up
04:09with global partnerships.
04:11One local company is opening the doors
04:13to a new British university.
04:17A British liberal arts university
04:19will open in Astana next September,
04:21bringing Western education closer to home.
04:23Offering degrees in business, AI, and education,
04:25it plans to grow from 100 to 400 students by 2029.
04:29My plan is for it to set the new standards,
04:34especially in a commercially competitive field
04:37where other big players will have to accept these roles
04:42and will have to improve their quality
04:44and will have to really care about their students
04:47and what kind of people their students will become.
04:50Gabit Bikahmetov says Kazakhstan's regional position
04:52and cultural diversity make it uniquely attractive
04:55for students seeking a cross-border education.
04:57in combination with the Soviet fundamental science,
05:04with the Chinese advances in innovations,
05:07with the Western standards and expectations and ambitions.
05:13And all this,
05:14and some kind of Oriental kindness and hospitality
05:20included in that.
05:22and combined with our nomadic dynamism,
05:26I think this is going to be a success risk.
05:29With more Western campuses opening,
05:31Gabit Bikahmetov believes Kazakhstan is on course
05:33to become a globally competitive education model.
05:38Four of Kazakhstan's top research universities
05:40have launched supercomputers
05:42with a combined capacity of 32 petaflops.
05:45That's 32 quadrillion calculations per second,
05:48powerful enough to train AI models,
05:50process vast databases and run advanced scientific simulations.
05:54The country's flagship English language university
05:56is leading the way.
05:58Joining us in the studio
05:59is Nazarbayev University President Waqar Ahmad.
06:04Mr. Waqar, welcome and great to have you on.
06:06Thank you for the invitation.
06:07I'm delighted to be here.
06:08Can you tell us more about the types of fundamental
06:10and applied research your university plans to conduct
06:13with the supercomputer capabilities?
06:15Prime example is the development of Kars LLM.
06:17And as we develop further, we would need
06:20even greater computing power in order to do that.
06:24If you think that the basic model
06:26which was developed with the Kars LLM
06:27is largely text-based.
06:29So Kars LLM was a basic model.
06:31We're now building on it.
06:34So there are new systems
06:35which focus on voice recognition.
06:37There are new tools
06:39which are using image processing and so on.
06:42And some of the new models
06:44which will be developed in this area
06:45are going to be all singing, all dancing models
06:48which use text, which use sound,
06:51which use image and so on.
06:53Can you tell me how joint funds
06:55help reinforce Kazakhstan's standing
06:58as a regional academic and innovations hub?
07:00We are developing new kinds of partnerships
07:01but we're also looking at how we can use
07:04the money that we invest in research jointly.
07:06So let's say that if we are investing
07:09a million dollars in research in a particular area,
07:13if we were to go into partnership
07:14with two other universities
07:15and if they were to match our funding,
07:18we now have three million dollars
07:19that we can bid for and they can bid for.
07:22But it also has the inbuilt advantage
07:24of collaborative research
07:26which would be of higher quality.
07:28It would get published
07:29in more prestigious journals.
07:32More people will use it.
07:34It would enhance the reputation of the university
07:37and the reputation of the country.
07:39And it would also address fundamental questions
07:41which face whether they face the economy,
07:45whether they relate to climate change,
07:46whether they relate to international relations
07:48and so on.
07:49Thanks so much for being with us today.
07:51It's a pleasure.
07:51Thank you.
07:54Bye for now
07:54and join us in the next episode
07:56of East-West Connect.
Commentaires