Abstract:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Kazakhstan became an independent state. Its high education system since then was constantly suffering reforms. The goal is to transfer educational system to credit system adopted in most western countries. In 2010 Kazakhstan joined the Bologna process; however, there are still numerous problems in transition to the credit system. Most of the problems are based on the misunderstanding of the term “credit” by majority of governmental officials and result in distorted implements across the universities of the country. Certain problems are aggravated by other nationwide issues which result in overall decline of educational level. The paper examines the problems identifying their main causes and concentrates on questions of overcoming them in context of creation a state policy. Being a state with traditionally strong governmental power consequent development is found to be extremely difficult without adopting such a policy by centralized governmental structures. The findings include the questions which should be crucial in development of a policy as well as the possible ways to reform particular issues in current education system embedded with an erroneous perception of the term “credit” and serous lack of academic freedom. The paper focuses on high education in general, but provides specific examples when necessary.

Keywords:

Credit system, higher education, hours per credit.