Admission exam retakes and access to higher education in Kazakhstan

• In Event: Governance and Policy Transformations in Central Asian Higher Education Systems

Proposal

This paper examines Kazakhstan’s Unified National Test (UNT), the country’s centralized university entrance exam, as a case for understanding how admissions exam policies shape access to higher education. Specifically, we focus on the major reform introduced in 2017 that shifted the UNT from a one-time high-stakes exam to a system that allows multiple attempts, aiming to expand pathways into higher education while maintaining merit-based selection.
Kazakhstan’s UNT and its reform reflect a broader regional move away from Soviet-era institution-based oral exams toward standardized national assessments intended to modernize higher education, reduce corruption, and broaden access (OECD, 2020; Brunner & Tillet, 2007). Today, only Turkmenistan still relies on institution-based entrance exams, while Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have implemented centralized systems comparable to Kazakhstan’s. However, Kazakhstan stands out as the first in the region to introduce a formal policy permitting multiple retakes within the same admissions cycle. This distinct feature makes Kazakhstan’s experience particularly valuable for examining how exam retake policies shape access to higher education across post-Soviet contexts.
To frame our analysis, we draw on human capital theory (Becker, 1994; Hanushek & Woessmann, 2015) and administrative burden theory (Moynihan & Herd, 2018). From a human capital perspective, UNT scores act as a crucial sorting mechanism, signaling students’ readiness for college-level work and shaping educational opportunities and potential returns. Administrative burden theory highlights how policy design can create uneven barriers, including learning costs (time and effort to prepare for retakes), compliance costs (financial or logistical challenges), and psychological costs (stress or stigma). Combined, these theories show how well-intentioned policies can either reduce or reinforce educational inequalities if administrative burdens are unevenly distributed across students (Dynarski et al., 2023).
We analyze rich administrative data from Kazakhstan’s National Center for Education Research and Evaluation, covering all high school graduates from 2017 to 2024. Using descriptive analyses and regression models with school fixed effects, we address four research questions: (1) What are trends in UNT performance? (2) How do scores vary by student background, school type, and region? (3) What are the patterns of UNT retake behavior? (4) What is the relationship between the number of retakes and UNT performance?
Aligning with international evidence on exam retaking, our findings show that multiple attempts are associated with higher average UNT scores. Yet these gains are not equally shared. Female students outperform male peers, while students in private and selective public schools benefit more than those in ordinary schools. Rural students and those in the North and West remain disadvantaged despite similar retake rates. Students testing in Kazakh perform differently from those testing in Russian, indicating linguistic and curricular divides.
This first nationwide analysis of Kazakhstan’s UNT retake policy provides new evidence on how centralized admissions systems can both broaden and limit access to higher education. Our study illustrates the trade-offs that emerge when policies intended to expand opportunity do not fully account for the unequal burdens of participation, offering timely lessons for scholars and policymakers focusing on admissions system reforms.

Authors

• Aizat Nurshatayeva

• Kuandyk Tleuzhanuly

• Dinara Ibrayeva, Florida Sate University