Bolashak Fellowship Program Office Opens in the US
The Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States is pleased to announce the opening of a new office for the Bolashak Fellowship Program.
Bolashak, which means future in Kazakh, was instituted by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1993 and started awarding educational grants the next year. During the first years of the nation’s independence, amid acute social problems and economic crisis, Kazakhstan was the first among the CIS countries to educate its best students at the top universities abroad, enabling them to acquire necessary skills and knowledge to build a democratic and prosperous society.
Today, the program provides a unique opportunity for the most talented students in Kazakhstan to get higher education at the best universities all over the world. It is designed to train future leaders in economics, public policy, science, technology, engineering, medicine and other important fields. Since 1993, more than 6500 Kazakhstani students have received the Bolashak Scholarship. During 1994-2010, nearly 3,000 students successfully completed their Bachelor, Masters and PhD degrees, and a third of them graduated from U.S. universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and Yale. Today, there are 815 Bolashak scholars in 42 U.S. universities – among them, 73% are seeking bachelor degrees, 26% are candidates for master degrees and 1% is PhD students and researchers.
The Bolashak office in Washington, D.C. based at the Kazakh Embassy is headed by Mr. Abzal Daribayev, Chief Representative. Prior to joining the Bolashak Program, he was a senior manager at Nazarbayev University, the new flagship university in Kazakhstan, and he was responsible for international relations at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture. He holds a Masters Degree in genetics from Moscow State University. His contact details are as follows:
Mr. Abzal Daribayev
Phone: 202 -232-5488 (ext. 123)
Email: abzalmos@yahoo.com
The office plans to open its webpage on the Embassy’s website in the near future.
The Center for International Programs, the main operator of the Bolashak Program, is accountable to the Ministry of Education and Science and plans to extend its cooperation with the top U.S. universities, research centers and international partners, such as American Councils for International Education and IREX.
The office opening highlights the Center’s commitment to the U.S. educational market. Bachelor-degree students seeking education in English will be taught at Nazarbayev University, which has already started admission of students for its bachelor programs supported by the world-known universities: University College of London, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Duke University, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, ICarnegie, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, University of Pennsylvania, Argonne National Lab, Berkley National Lab, Partners Harvard Medical International Inc. Meanwhile, to fill the gap in qualified academic and scientific staff for national universities and engineers for industry, the Bolashak will continue sending Kazakhstan students abroad to study for Masters and PhD degrees, including at top U.S. universities.
A presence in the U.S. will help the Center for International Programs monitor students’ progress in their studies and also facilitate other international educational projects of the Ministry of Education and Science
This is the fifth overseas office of the Center for International Programs. Headquartered in Astana, the Center also has a presence in Beijing, Moscow, London and Berlin.
Tags: Bolashak
