Number of PhD educational grants to make 1,000 in Kazakhstan

Number of educational grants for PhD is going to be increased to 1,000 in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports. As per Kazakhstan Minister of Education and Science Bakytzhan Zhumagulov, only 200 grants were issued this academic year. The next year their number will be 500 and will further increase to 1,000 grants in the coming years. “In general training of PhD students will be improved in quality and quantity. There will be no paid PhD programs,” Zhumagulov said in Almaty at the opening of the forum called Development of science is the country's future! The Minister said that state universities started making provisions to ensure academic mobility of students with financial support from the state. The system for attracting foreign professors will be developed to improve training of bachelor, master's and PhD students. “In 2005 we were able to attract only 40 foreign professors, but this year there will be 300 of them, each working for 10 months. The funds allocated for this purpose increased almost 10-holdup and reached 2.5 billion tenge ($17 million),” he said. Zhumagulov added that Kazakhstan Government approved creation of unique Centers for Teaching Art under Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools and retraining centers for pedagogical universities' professors under Nazarbayev University. “We are asking the government to allocate 340 million tenge ($2.3 billion) for this purpose for 5 years starting from 2012. Besides, 10 innovations-oriented universities will be selectedon a competitive basis. 200 million tenge ($1.3 million) allocated for each of them,” the Minister said.