In preparation for the Parliamentary hearings, the Senate hosted a meeting of the Head of the Upper Chamber of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Dariga Nazarbayeva, and the leaders of the Ministry of Education and Science and representatives of agricultural colleges.
The meeting was attended by deputies of the Senate of Kazakhstan, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, Kassipkor Holding and heads of agricultural colleges.
The meeting participants discussed training in agricultural disciplines and qualifications as well as the need for a new training system and the content of the educational process.
Alexandr Kasharin, Vice Principal of the K. Donenbayeva Vocational College, who spoke at the meeting, highlighted the organization of industrial practice and further employment of college students as one of the pressing issues. “Business community should be involved in education for the training of specialists. Because we do train specialists for business, for the companies and enterprises. I believe that when a private company gets a graduate from the state, they should invest in their education,” he said.
Dariga Nazarbayeva supported this suggestion and noted that, in turn, business community often complained about the quality of training and the lack of specialists. “The staff that they hire after college and their qualifications are much far from perfect, they don’t have practical skills. Funds are allocated from the budget; everything is fine in the reports. However, in fact, there is a shortage of personnel,” she said.
Keeping on the subject, the Senate Speaker emphasized that a lot depends on the attitude of local executive authorities. “If the akim supports, if he is interested, then a college lives well. Much depends on people and how accurate and targeted the need for certain agricultural disciplines is formed. For sure, first of all, they should rely on the requests received from businessmen. Second, each region has its own long-term plan for territorial development. This is a policy document that predicts the future of the region. In this regard, you should see what and how is going to happen in the economy, and what is important today in agriculture, what new companies are planned to open, what kind of staff is required,” D. Nazarbayeva said.
In turn, representatives of the vocational training and education system spoke about the challenges they had faced in organizing the educational process. In particular, the poor provision of colleges with modern equipment and the lack of industry textbooks were cited as the key problem. According to the participants of the meeting, college leaders often buy livestock at their own expense and keep it so that students could gain practical skills in animal husbandry. “I keep 12 cows for this purpose,” one of the principals admitted.
In addition, they discussed that a high number of state colleges in Kazakhstan. According to statistics, there are 801 colleges, while only 17 of them train agribusiness specialists. Addressing the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Head of the Senate said, “Why do we need so many of them? We should reduce this number. Keep some depending on the regional specialization. If the region’s economy is mainly agrarian and the region specializes in agriculture, then the number of state colleges should be adjusted accordingly. If there are many colleges, then we should reduce their number, reallocate funds to the remaining colleges, develop projects of standard material and technical facilities and ensure they are provided with everything necessary for training in the next year or two.”
During the meeting, in order to improve the quality of education in the field of agriculture, it was proposed to establish commissions in charge of coordinating the interactions between the business community, state authorities and vocational schools at the regional chambers of entrepreneurs of Atameken.
Summing up the meeting, the Chairperson of the Senate of the Parliament instructed the Committee on Agrarian Issues, Nature Management and Rural Development to examine the problematic topics raised by the participants of the meeting and prepare them to be discussed at the Parliamentary hearings.
