Minister of Education and Science Askhat Aimagambetov announced that Kazakhstan is starting a pilot project for an applied bachelor's degree with a term of 2.5 years in September 2022. The project will be tested at several universities in the capital and Almaty.

Practice-based approach

"This is a very important project. A lot of employers say that it takes a long time to train personnel - for four years - but this is only for the undergraduate level."

According to the minister of education, those who want to work will be able to find a job after 2-2.5 years of training. The goal is to develop a practice-oriented approach to creating specialists in a shorter period of time.

"In the pilot mode, we want to start training applied bachelors. Depending on whether they will go to university or early college [a secondary institution alternative to high school], they will be trained for a certain period of time, but the period of training will be much shorter than the training in a regular bachelor's degree."

“If an individual wants to continue their studies and get a full bachelor's degree, they will have that opportunity. They can go back to high school, complete their credits, and get the degree they want," the minister explained.