37 million Euro spent on Tempus program in Kazakhstan

The EU funding of Tempus program in Kazakhstan has made 37 million Euro since 1995, Tengrinews.kz reports citing coordinator of Tempus National office in Kazakhstan Shaizada Tasbulatova. The plenary meeting of the consortium of Tempus European project was held in Almaty on April 4-5. It was participated by 35 Central Asian and 14 European universities. The program allows to improve the country's higher education, harmonize it with the international requirements and promote improvement of the quality and competitiveness of Kazakhstan's education. Kazakhstan students are able to study in Europe thanks to Tempus program. Coordinator of the national office noted that Kazakhstan started taking part in the program in 1995. 59 projects had been implemented since then and the total volume of financing from the EU had made 37 million Euro. 22 Tempus projects are currently being implemented in Kazakhstan. They involve over 40 universities from 14 regions of the country. Kazakhstan is the leader by the number of programs among Central Asian countries. The Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science coordinated the program until 2005. The National Office of Tempus in Kazakhstan was opened in June 2005. Starting from 2010, Kazakhstan has been participating in the Bologna Process, which means that Kazakhstan universities have to comply with all the requirements, same as all the European universities. As a results of such cooperation, Kazakhstan has implemented a system of education loans, integrated doctoral programs in its education, introduced a 3-level professional education system (bachelor, master, doctor) and harmonized the educational programs.