Governance and Policy Transformations in Central Asian Higher Education Systems

Group Submission Type: Paper Session

Proposal

This panel examines the shifting governance structures and policy reforms that are reshaping higher education systems in Central Asia. Since independence from the Soviet Union, countries across the region have embarked on ambitious reform agendas aimed at modernizing their higher education sectors. Many of these transformations have been influenced by global trends, including the Bologna Process, the knowledge economy discourse, and international development frameworks. At the same time, they have been shaped by national priorities, including state-building, economic modernization, and the revitalization of cultural identity and language. These reforms have led to significant changes in curriculum design, university admissions, language policy, research regulation, and quality assurance mechanisms. By analyzing how policy reforms are formulated, enacted, and contested, the panel offers critical insights into the evolving governance of higher education in Central Asian contexts. It highlights both the possibilities and constraints that characterize reform processes in systems marked by strong state involvement, limited institutional autonomy, and mix policy environments.

The first paper on admission exam retakes and access to higher education in Kazakhstan by Aizat Nurshatayeva, Kuandyk Tleuzhanuly, Dinara Ibrayeva, and Alexandr Pilipenko analyzes the development and implementation of the Unified National Test (UNT) for university admissions in Kazakhstan. Introduced as a tool to ensure merit-based access, the UNT has transformed pathways to higher education. Drawing on human capital theory (Becker, 1994; Hanushek & Woessmann, 2015) and administrative burden theory (Moynihan & Herd, 2018), the authors 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, the authors 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? 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. The 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.

Saule Yeszhanova and Zumrad Kataeva examine curriculum reforms in Kazakhstan through the lens of Ball et al.’s (2012) policy enactment theory, highlighting the interplay between faculty agency and structural constraints. Focusing on one public university’s foreign languages department, the authors investigate how faculty members perceive, enact, and negotiate curriculum reforms shaped by post-Soviet legacies, international influences (such as NGOs and the Bologna Process), and national identity-building agendas like Kazakhstan 2050 and Rukhani Zhangyru. Using qualitative data, including participant observation, document analysis, and interviews with 21 faculty members, the findings reveal that while faculty members widely accepted the rationale of the reforms emphasizing competitiveness, efficiency, and alignment with global standards, they often felt constrained by top-down institutional control, standardization, and heavy workloads. Yet, faculty agency was enabled through peer networks, professional commitment, and self-directed learning, despite limited formal autonomy. The study contributes to the literature on policy enactment in post-Soviet higher education contexts, highlighting how faculty navigate reforms in tightly regulated systems. It offers new insights into how perceived and actual control shape faculty responses to policy change.

The paper by Botagoz Ispambetova and Ikrom Rikhsiboev investigates the institutionalization of research ethics and the establishment of IRECs (Institutional Research Ethics Committee) at a research university in Kazakhstan and branch campuses in Uzbekistan, non-Western settings with limited prior experience in research ethics. It explores why IREC policies were adopted, how stakeholders experienced their implementation, and how global ethics norms were adapted locally. Using a constructivist approach informed by neo-institutional theory and comparative education, the study finds that IRECs were primarily adopted to gain legitimacy to enable faculty collaboration, secure international funding, and improve publication prospects. The findings reveal that the implementation unfolded in three stages, each aligned with one of Scott’s (2014) institutional pillars: Stage 1 – normative; Stage 2 – regulative; Stage 3 – cultural-cognitive. The final stage positioned IRECs as tools for broader research capacity building. The study contributes to scholarship on ethics policy transfer and institutionalization in emerging research systems. It also demonstrates the analytical value of combining Scott’s (2014) framework with Phillips and Ochs’ (2006) policy borrowing model for understanding research ethics reform in post-Soviet higher education contexts.

The final contribution by Smagulova and Kucherbayeva examines multilingual reforms in medical education in Kazakhstan. In many post-colonial and non-English-speaking nations, medical practitioners debate whether to instruct in indigenous languages or in predominant languages such as Russian or English, which include the majority of scientific, professional, technical, and academic resources. In second- and foreign-language medical education, linguistic challenges impede academic performance and patient interaction (Hamad et al., 2025). Nonetheless, instruction in indigenous languages, which are frequently underfunded and underdeveloped, may impact medical education and healthcare provision. The authors analyze academic issues in Kazakh medical education through a historical-structural lens (Tollefson 2015), perceiving language and medium of instruction policies as contextual sociocultural phenomena. They emphasize historical and institutional domination and hegemony in their discussion of language use, language planning, and language policy decisions in medical schools. The data is derived from interviews with teachers at Kazakh medical schools. The findings reveal challenges for Kazakh-language instruction, including quality of medical training, quality of teaching resources, elaboration of medical Kazakh, language proficiency by faculty and students, classroom practices, employability and readiness for the workplace, and the doctor–patient relationship and health care. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for language policy in medical schools and the broader context of the higher education sector.

Sub Unit

• Europe and Central Asia SIG

Organizer

• Zumrad Kataeva, Nazarbayev University

Chair

• Aliya Kuzhabekova, University of Calgary

Individual Presentations

• Admission exam retakes and access to higher education in Kazakhstan - Aizat Nurshatayeva; Kuandyk Tleuzhanuly; Dinara Ibrayeva, Florida Sate University

• Language challenges in medical education in Kazakhstan: Faculty perspective - Juldyz Smagulova, KIMEP University; Dina Kucherbayeva, KIMEP University

• Factors of Research Misconduct in Non-Western Contexts: Perceptions of Faculty from Kazakhstan - Tatyana Kim, University of Calgary; Aliya Kuzhabekova, University of Calgary; Arafat Mamyrbekov, University of Calgary