Dariga Nazarbayeva met with representatives of vocational education system for agriculture

The meeting that focused on training in agricultural specialties and qualifications, and the need for a new training system and the content of the educational process, was attended by deputies of the Senate, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Kasipkor Holding and heads of agricultural colleges.

Aleksandr Kasharin, deputy director of the K. Donenbayeva Vocational and Technical College, highlighted the organization of industrial practice and subsequent employment of college students as one of the pressing issues.

“It is necessary to involve business in education for the training of specialists, because we still train specialists for business, LLPs, enterprises. I believe that a private enterprise should also invest in education of a graduate, whom they usually receive from the State,” he said.

Dariga Nazarbayeva supported this proposal, noting that, in turn, business often complains about the quality of training and the lack of specialists.

“The staff that they hire after college, their level of training leaves much to be desired, there are no practical skills. Money are allocated from the budget, everything is fine in the reports. And in fact, there is a shortage of personnel,” she said.

The Senate Speaker also pointed out that a lot depends on the position of local executive bodies.

“As long as there is support from a governor, the college functions well. Much depends on the people themselves and on the question of how accurately and targetedly the need for certain agricultural specialties is formed. Of course, first of all, you need to build on applications that come from entrepreneurs. Secondly, each region has its own long-term plan for territorial development. This is a policy document that predicts the future of the region. And in this regard, one should look at what will happen in the economy, in what direction and what will be important today in agriculture, what new enterprises are planned to open, what kind of staff is being undertaken,” she said.

In turn, representatives of the vocational education system spoke about the difficulties that have to be encountered in organizing the educational process. In particular, the poor equipment of colleges with modern equipment and the lack of industry textbooks were cited as the main problem. According to the participants of the meeting, college leaders often buy livestock at their own expense and keep it so that students can gain practical skills in animal husbandry.

“I myself keep 12 cows for this purpose,” one of the directors said.

The topic of the redundancy of state colleges in Kazakhstan was raised at the meeting. According to statistics, there are 801 of them, while only 17 train specialists for the agricultural sector.

The Senate Speaker called for the reduction in the number of agricultural colleges.

“If the region’s economy is more agrarian and the region specializes specifically in agriculture, then the number of state colleges should be determined for this. If there are many colleges, then you need to reduce their number, redistribute the money to the remaining colleges, create standard material and technical equipment projects and ensure that they are provided with everything necessary for training in the next year or two,” she said.

During the meeting, in order to improve the quality of education in the field of agriculture, it was proposed to create commissions for coordinating the interaction of business, government bodies and vocational schools at the Atameken regional chambers of entrepreneurs.

The Senate Chairwoman directed the Committee on Agrarian Issues, Nature Management and Rural Development to study the problematic topics raised by the participants of the meeting and prepare them for discussion at the Parliamentary hearings.