KAZAKHSTAN: Economic crisis knocks HE plans

Kazakhstan's higher education system is taking a battering from the global financial crisis, jeopardising ambitious plans to turn the country into an Asian tiger economy, writes Joanna Lillis for EurasiaNet. Thousands of young people face expulsion from universities as they find themselves unable to pay tuition and fees.

The government has moved to quell a public outcry by fast-tracking measures to assist financially-strapped students.

There are wider implications: problems in higher education could jeopardise President Nursultan Nazarbayev's key priorities of transforming Kazakhstan into a knowledge economy, turning the country trilingual and making it one of the world's 50 most competitive countries. Kazakhstan currently ranks 66th in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009.
Full report on the EurasiaNet site