Search

This article explores the employment experiences of government scholarship graduates from one master's degree programme at a flagship university in Kazakhstan. Analysis of interviews with graduates of a master's degree programme designed in response to a national policy agenda shows that graduates encountered numerous challenges transitioning from university to work despite obtaining a degree from a top Kazakhstani university. The key challenges included limited employment opportunities, hostile attitudes toward younger graduates, difficult working conditions and employers' misunderstanding of the new master's programmes. We argue that despite significant government financial investment in education, a weak enabling support system hinders graduates' career advancement and results in job mismatch and underutilization of skills. We suggest that policymakers need to shift debates on human capital development and graduate employability from supply-side factors to a more comprehensive model in which graduate employment is supported through the collaboration of the higher education system, industry, policymakers and graduates themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of international scholarship programmes is part of a long‐standing approach to human capital development in many developing and middle‐income countries that finance studies at universities abroad and locally. Yet, many scholarship alumni struggle to thrive in their home country and encounter numerous difficulties in their transition to the job market. This paper examines the employment experiences of Kazakhstan's government scholarship alumni in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and identifies the challenges they encounter navigating the labour market. Our analysis of 45 interviews demonstrated that although alumni hold a positional advantage in the job market and many succeed, there are also many alumni whose employability and career success are impeded by an intersection of socioeconomic and cultural factors, intergenerational clashes and scholarship programme regulations. The implications for scholarship programmes and government policy goals are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]