NUR-SULTAN – Starting in September, Kazakh students will be able to pay a part of their tuition by volunteering, said Director of the Department of Higher and Postgraduate Education of the Ministry of Education and Science Adlet Toibayev at a July 7 press conference.
Photo credit: Timur Kazangapov, Tengrinews.
The programme will be available through a soon-to-be launched website, where all students studying in Kazakh universities will be eligible to register and choose a type of work. Volunteer organisations willing to recruit new members through the programme will also be invited to register.
Volunteer opportunities include educational work in neighbourhood clubs (social organisations that provide educational and recreational services to local community members for free or at a lower cost than commercial organisations) and inclusive educational organisations. Students will be able to tutor the English and Kazakh languages, as well as other school subjects, and coach sports. Other choices involve organisational and administrative work with social organisations and social work with the elderly and teenagers at risk. The options will correspond with the students’ majors as closely as possible.
Students will have a choice between taking a two-credit (20 hours) workload covering 20,000 tenge (US$52.21) or five-credit (50 hours) workload covering 50,000 tenge (US$130.52) of their tuition. Tuition costs vary from 75,000 tenge (US$195.77) to 1.8 million tenge (US$2,819.12) per semester, depending on the programme, university and region, according to the Freedom Finance Life study. The credits earned will also count towards degree completion.
The pilot programme is planned for three years and is expected to involve 50,000 students. The project will be coordinated by local executive bodies.
In January, the First President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, suggested raising the scholarships of students who do volunteer work by 30 percent, reported Vlast.kz.
