Universities of Kazakhstan invite foreign students

? The current COVID-19 situation in the world has had a significant impact on the educational process, including the international mobility of students. In the 2020 spring semester all universities of Kazakhstan quickly switched to distance learning. The country’s higher education system has successfully coped with the first mass experience of transition to distance education. Taking into account increasing requests from foreign citizens, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan decided to provide access to training sessions in the distance format in the new 2020-2021 academic year for all foreign students who will not be able to enter the country due to the pandemic. These changes concern not only those continuing their studies, but also foreign applicants who wish to study distance learning programmes offered by Kazakhstani universities. The pandemic has made adjustments to the admissions campaign as well. Today, application process in Kazakhstani universities is fully conducted online by the Virtual Admissions Commissions. Submission of documents is possible through the websites of universities in accordance with their requirements. Entrance exams (interview) for foreign citizens are also held remotely by the universities themselves. To that end, today all universities in Kazakhstan are equipped with the necessary digital infrastructure and LMS platforms (Platonus, Univer, Moodle, Canvas, etc.). Universities provide access to electronic libraries, an online registrar’s office, an online dean’s office, virtual laboratories have been created, and all control exams are held with remote proctoring. Active cooperation is going on with leading foreign universities in developing joint distance programmes and virtual academic mobility of students. Currently, there are 129 universities in Kazakhstan, 10 of them are recognised by the international rating agencies QS and Times Higher Education. Moreover, in 2020 Al-Farabi Kazakh National University entered the World’s Top-200 best universities (165th position in QS), confirming its compliance with a high level in the global scientific and educational space.