Bolashak

The Bolashak Programme (the Bolashak International Scholarship) is a scholarship which is awarded to high-performing students from Kazakhstan to study overseas all-expenses paid, provided that they return to Kazakhstan to work for at least five years after graduation.^[1]

Since its implementation in 1993, more than 10,000 students have been awarded the scholarship. Most of these students travel to study in the United States, but also elsewhere around the world.

Description

The word "Bolashak" is translated into English as "Future". It was instituted by the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1993. Slate columnist Joshua Kucera writes that President Nazarbayev has "billed it as a way to inculcate Kazakhstan's youth with Western, democratic values."^[1] Kucera acknowledges in his article, however, that while they are sent overseas to learn new ideas and western values, they are often not given authority to implement positive changes.

Many Bolashak graduates hold main positions in state and private organizations within Kazakhstan.

According to an article in Zhas Alash, 10/25/1996, Kuanysh Satybaldievich Sazanov, a political economist, was recognized as the first Bolashak scholarship recipient. Mr. Sazanov finished his two year program in 18 months, and in a symbolic gesture, presented the first Bolashak diploma to Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

From 1994 through 2004, 785 students were granted the Bolashak scholarship. By 2017, 12,046 more scholarships had been granted, making a total of 12,831 scholarships by the year 2018.^[2]

In 2005, the total number of applicants who applied for the Bolashak program was recorded as 6,698.^[3] Compared to 2004, the amount of applicants increased by 45%. Moreover, this amount exceeded the yearly intake of major universities in Kazakhstan.^[4]

During the competition process of the year 2005, 537 applicant records were rejected due to nonconformity to the competition rules for awarding the Bolashak International Scholarship. The applicants, approved for conformity to the Rules of Selection, underwent language and psychological testing. Based upon results of the tests, they were recommended for consideration by the Experts Committee. As a result, in the year 2005, 1,796 applicants were awarded the Bolashak scholarship.

In 2006, the receipt of documents for participation at the selection process was conducted from April 26 through May 15, 2006 and from September 15 through October 31, 2006. During the first intake 809 files were received and 1,620 were received during the second intake. After language and psychological testing in the year 2006, 778 students were awarded the scholarship.

On April 20, 2007 by the decision of the Republican Committee for preparation of specialists abroad, the scholarship was granted to 82 applicants, on August 16 – to 185 applicants.

On January 24, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 223 candidates. On April 28, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 104 candidates. On August 13, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 356 candidates.

Overall, as of 2009 5,950 students were awarded by a scholarship. Around 2,000 out of them were employed by the government and national companies. In 2009, 800 students returned to Kazakhstan.

In 2012, young people of Kazakhstan were granted the opportunity to study in 32 countries at 630 leading universities overseas.

Ethnic distribution

According to last period statistics of 2008, 93.6% of candidates recommended for competition were of Kazakh ethnicity, followed by 3% of ethnic Russian, 0.9% ethnic Korean and 0.5% ethnic Tatar, basically due to essential criteria of the scholarship is the knowledge of the Kazakh language. On the other hand, last 1999 census showed the country's ethnic make-up to be 67.4% Kazakh, 25.9% Russian, 3.7% Ukrainian and 2.5% Uzbek, and that the Kazakh language is spoken by 64.4% of population, primarily by the ethnic Kazakhs.^[5]

List of universities

Universities for academic study in all specialties in 2023.^[6]

Name	Country
Australian National University	Australia
Curtin University	Australia
Deakin University	Australia
Macquarie University	Australia
Monash University	Australia
Queensland University of Technology	Australia
University of Adelaide	Australia
University of Melbourne	Australia
University of New South Wales	Australia
University of Queensland	Australia
University of Sydney	Australia
University of Technology Sydney	Australia
University of Western Australia	Australia
University of Wollongong	Australia
University of Innsbruck	Austria
University of Vienna	Austria
Ghent University	Belgium
KU Leuven	Belgium
Universite libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
University of Antwerp	Belgium
Cardiff University	Great Britain
Durham University	Great Britain
Imperial College London	Great Britain
King's College London	Great Britain
Lancaster University	Great Britain
London School of Economics and Political Science	Great Britain
Newcastle University	Great Britain
Queen Mary University of London	Great Britain
University College London	Great Britain
University of Aberdeen	Great Britain
University of Bath	Great Britain
University of Birmingham	Great Britain
University of Bristol	Great Britain
University of Cambridge	Great Britain
University of East Anglia	Great Britain
University of Edinburgh	Great Britain
University of Exeter	Great Britain
University of Glasgow	Great Britain
University of Leeds	Great Britain
University of Liverpool	Great Britain
University of Manchester	Great Britain
University of Nottingham	Great Britain
University of Oxford	Great Britain
University of Reading	Great Britain
University of Sheffield	Great Britain
University of Southampton	Great Britain
University of Sussex	Great Britain
University of Warwick	Great Britain
University of York	Great Britain
Goethe University Frankfurt	Germany
Heidelberg University	Germany
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München	Germany
RWTH Aachen University	Germany
Technical University of Berlin	Germany
Technical University of Munich	Germany
University of Bonn	Germany
University of Cologne	Germany
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
University of Freiburg	Germany
University of Göttingen	Germany
University of Tübingen	Germany
University of Wuerzburg	Germany
Aarhus University	Denmark
Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
University of Copenhagen	Denmark
Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
Tel Aviv University	Israel
University College Dublin	Ireland
Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain
Complutense University of Madrid	Spain
University of Navarra	Spain
Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
Dalhousie University	Canada
McGill University	Canada
McMaster University	Canada
University of Alberta	Canada
University of British Columbia	Canada
University of Calgary	Canada
University of Ottawa	Canada
University of Toronto	Canada
University of Waterloo	Canada
Beijing Normal University	China
Fudan University	China
Harbin Institute of Technology	China
Nanjing University	China
Peking University	China
Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
Sun Yat-sen University	China
Tsinghua University	China
University of Science and Technology of China	China
Zhejiang University	China
Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hongkong
City University of Hong Kong	Hongkong
Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hongkong
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hongkong
University of Hong Kong	Hongkong
Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
Leiden University	Netherlands
Maastricht University	Netherlands
University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
University of Groningen	Netherlands
Utrecht University	Netherlands
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
University of Otago	New Zealand
University of Bergen	Norway
University of Oslo	Norway
Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russia
Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
National University of Singapore	Singapore
Boston University	USA
Brown University	USA
California Institute of Technology	USA
Carnegie Mellon University	USA
Case Western Reserve University	USA
Columbia University	USA
Cornell University	USA
Duke University	USA
Emory University	USA
Florida State University	USA
George Mason University	USA
Georgetown University	USA
Georgia Institute of Technology	USA
Harvard University	USA
Indiana University Bloomington	USA
Johns Hopkins University	USA
Michigan State University	USA
New York University	USA
Northwestern University	USA
Ohio State University	USA
Pennsylvania State University	USA
Princeton University	USA
Purdue University	USA
Rice University	USA
Rutgers University, New Brunswick	USA
Stanford University	USA
Texas A&M University	USA
Tufts University	USA
University of Arizona	USA
University of California, Berkeley	USA
University of California, Davis	USA
University of California, Irvine	USA
University of California, Los Angeles	USA
University of California, San Diego	USA
University of California, Santa Barbara	USA
University of Chicago	USA
University of Colorado at Boulder	USA
University of Florida	USA
University of Illinois at Chicago	USA
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	USA
University of Maryland, College Park	USA
University of Massachusetts Amherst	USA
University of Miami	USA
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	USA
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	USA
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	USA
University of Pennsylvania	USA
University of Pittsburgh	USA
University of Rochester	USA
University of South Florida	USA
University of Southern California	USA
University of Texas at Austin	USA
University of Utah	USA
University of Virginia	USA
University of Washington	USA
University of Wisconsin–Madison	USA
Vanderbilt University	USA
Washington University in St. Louis	USA
Yale University	USA
Dartmouth College	USA
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	USA
University of Helsinki	Finland
École Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
Paris-Saclay University	France
PSL University	France
Sorbonne University	France
University of Paris	France
Charles University	Czech Republic
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology	Switzerland
University of Basel	Switzerland
University of Bern	Switzerland
University of Geneva	Switzerland
University of Lausanne	Switzerland
University of Zurich	Switzerland
Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
Karolinska Institute	Sweden
KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
Lund University	Sweden
Stockholm University	Sweden
University of Gothenburg	Sweden
Uppsala University	Sweden
Hanyang University	Korea
Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology	Korea
Korea University	Korea
Kyung Hee University	Korea
Seoul National University	Korea
Sungkyunkwan University	Korea
Yonsei University	Korea
University of Cape Town	South Africa
Kyoto University	Japan
Nagoya University	Japan
Tohoku University	Japan
Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
University of Tokyo	Japan
Osaka University	Japan
Bauman Moscow State Technical University	Russia
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology	Russia
National research nuclear University MEPHI	Russia
St Petersburg University	Russia
Higher school of Economics National Research University	Russia
The German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer	Germany
University of St Andrews	Great Britain г. Сент-Андрус, Шотландия
Queen's University Belfast	Great Britain Belfast, Northern Ireland
University of Leicester	Great Britain
Universität Hamburg	Germany
Technische Universitat Dresden	Germany
Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
Universitat de Barcelona	Spain
University of Bologna	Italy
Universitate de Montreal	Canada
Western University	Canada
Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
Radboud University in Nijmegen	Netherlands
University of Twente	Netherlands
The University of Auckland	New Zealand
ITMO University	Russia
National University Sciense and technology «MISIS»	Russia
Arizona State University	USA
University of Notre Dame	USA
Aalto University	Finland
Institut Polytechnique de Paris	France
Pohang University of Science and Technology	Korea
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology	Korea
Hokkaido University	Japan

References

1. Kucera, Joshua (3 August 2011). "Kazakhstan Rising, Entry 3: Nazarbayev U." Slate. Retrieved 9 June 2013.
2. "Kazakhstan's Bolashak Programme has awarded 12,831 scholarships in 25 years - The Astana Times". The Astana Times. 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
3. "National Scholarship Programs-2008" (PDF).
4. "Bolashak-International Scholarship of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan" (PDF).
5. CIA - The World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/kazakhstan/
6. Tima. "Высшие учебные заведения". bolashak.gov.kz. Retrieved 2023-09-07.

External links

• Center for International Programs
• Bolashak student`s testimonials: Questions&Answers, HowTo
• Bolashak students at MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Bolashak students about Kazakhstan