Abstract

This seminar introduces a forthcoming book edited by Matt Hartley and Alan Ruby and published by Cambridge University Press. It draws together many years work by scholars, researchers and practitioners that began with some consultancy work on a national human development strategy for Kazakhstan. This led to some advisory work on the basic legal and academic architecture to establish a new university in Astana, which turned into Nazarbayev University, a highly selective research oriented English language institution with a number of international partners. Those partners include Cambridge and the University of Pennsylvania and the relationships established in those first years of co-operative endeavor continue. The work has evolved from an initial focus on supporting and developing one institution to address how to improve the governance and management of national and provincial universities by increasing academic autonomy and establishing effective boards of trustees. It has also covered issues like better data to steer the public system of higher education and manage individual institutions and the role and impact of national scholarships tenable at international colleges and universities. And it has dealt with such fundamental issues as the reform of teacher education and the professional growth and development of the existing teacher workforce. Four of the contributors to this collection, Sagintayeva, Hartley, McLaughlin and Ruby will talk about some of the major themes that have emerged from this work especially the key leadership challenges for Kazakhstan’ system of higher education and its institutions. They will also comment on issues that will be encountered in the next few years as the nation continues to develop and engage with the global economy and a rapidly changing environment.