ASTANA – Kazakhstan is positioning itself among the first countries globally to integrate artificial intelligence into its education system through a partnership with OpenAI, in what officials describe as a long-term investment in national capabilities.
Valerie Focke. Photo credit: personal archive
“Kazakhstan is among those first countries globally to embark upon a collaboration with OpenAI on the frontier of education,” said Valerie Focke, lead for education across Europe, the Middle East and Africa at OpenAI, in an interview with The Astana Times.
The core deal was struck between OpenAI, Freedom Holding, and regional partner Bilim Group, a prominent EdTech group in Kazakhstan, which connects more than 15 digital educational products.
The initiative stems from agreements reached after a memorandum of cooperation was signed on Nov. 6, 2025, during President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to the United States.
“I think the potential for collaboration on broader fronts is enormous,” she said, highlighting a “real appetite and interest” from both sides to tap into that potential.
As part of the rollout, 165,000 ChatGPT Edu licenses will be distributed free of charge across Kazakhstan’s education system. This includes 100,000 licenses for preschool, secondary, technical, and vocational educators. A further 62,800 licenses will go to administrators and higher education faculty, while 2,200 are allocated to participants within the Astana Hub ecosystem.
The project is being implemented under agreements reached following a memorandum of cooperation signed on Nov. 6, 2025. Photo credit: Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development
ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT, is designed specifically for academic institutions. Built for large-scale use, the platform provides access to OpenAI’s latest models, along with enterprise-level security, data privacy protections, and administrative controls. The tool also offers advanced features, including data analysis, document summarization, and the ability to create customized GPTs.
Preparing for future
Focke described AI as not just a technology or a technological experiment, but rather a core national capability with the potential to become “incredibly transformative.”
She said the effort begins with a shared ambition in Kazakhstan to better prepare for the future, starting within the education system. That includes investing in educators and ensuring that today’s students are equipped to become the workforce of tomorrow, as the economy adapts to the rise of AI.
“We are seeing Kazakhstan as a pioneer and early mover among the countries to really start to think about it from the ground up,” she explained. “By the ground up, I mean within its education system. It is a real testimony to see how significant and to what a degree of scale Kazakhstan is looking to build that capability across not just educators, but also students, researchers and public institutions.”
Broader education system
While education is the bedrock and a place where many countries should begin, the implications go beyond the classroom. Starting with educators is just the first step. The real shift lies in how the broader education system evolves.
“To think about how they are transforming the nation’s education system. (…) How do those young people then go into different opportunities? How do they use these types of tools to support things like public services?” she said.
Focke also pointed to the role of research, stressing the need for institutions in Kazakhstan to translate their ambitions into tangible outcomes, including scientific discovery. That should be done within a framework that ensures strong safeguards for privacy, security, and accountability.
“First and foremost, the scale does matter. The days of tinkering with AI in small pockets, as impactful as that can be, are really not going to drive the sort of transformation that we have been talking about with the government here and the teams on the ground,” she said.
There is a need for broader, system-wide adoption to achieve the kind of transformation being discussed with the government.
What will be the impact?
“Impact can mean lots of different things,” she said, noting that it starts with teachers as the primary users of these tools.
“From our work in the space, we have seen that it has an enormous amount of benefit to alleviate some of the burden around teaching and burden and teaching shouldn’t come together,” said Focke.
She said tasks such as lesson planning, administrative duties, gathering feedback, and adjusting materials eat up a lot of time. This time could be better spent engaging with students and focusing on the core of teaching itself.
“We see an opportunity to benefit educators from that lens, but also be able to provide additional creativity in the classroom and guide students as they will enter into a workforce that is AI-ready,” she said.
Focke said that as countries move toward becoming AI-ready, two clear trends are emerging. One of them, frequently highlighted by OpenAI, is a growing focus on building practical capabilities, with educators playing a key role in that process.
“They are thinking about how educators are part of that journey to help students to build capabilities that they will be using in the future. And when I say future, I really mean very immediate term future,” she said.
That means finding ways for students to learn with AI in a way that genuinely improves their understanding and outcomes, while also creating strong local examples of how this can work in practice. Putting educators at the center of that shift, she added, is what will ultimately drive meaningful impact.
Challenges moving forward
When asked about the challenges of integrating these tools, Focke pointed to issues of access, readiness, and the need for strong regulatory safeguards.
“What has been really refreshing in our work together, and we are here obviously with our partner, Bilim Group is looking at approaching this from the perspective of pragmatic readiness,” she said.
“From my own experience, success depends not just on technology, but really on the systems that we create around that,” she added.
That means preparing teachers through consistent training, developing curricula that meaningfully integrate AI, and measuring real outcomes, including how these tools affect learning. The rollout, she added, is being approached in phases, beginning with educators and supported by ongoing research. That collaboration is also aimed at understanding the broader impact not only on education, but on longer-term economic outcomes.
Partnership with Kazakhstan
Focke expressed optimism about the partnership with Kazakhstan.
“First of all, ensuring that we have impact and success here is number one. I am more than confident that that is going to be the case. We are in a position to deliver net positive learning outcomes for those benefiting from these tools,” she said.
She is also confident that educators will be well-positioned to use these tools, both to build practical AI skills and strengthen their existing capabilities. Kazakhstan, she noted, is part of a small but growing group of countries exploring how such technologies can transform education systems, while also contributing to a broader global exchange of knowledge and best practices.
Alongside ongoing research, she said there is significant potential to deepen insights into how these tools can support not only education, but Kazakhstan’s broader economic development.
“A lot of this is driven by a really ambitious nation with some exciting talents that we see,” she said.
