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Globally, scholarships for international higher education play a critical role in human capital development. While substantial research has documented the benefits such scholarships provide for individuals, their impact on the creation of pathways for social change remains under-researched. This paper bridges this gap by examining the extent to which a government scholarship for international education has created pathways for social change in Kazakhstan. Data were collected through interviews with 67 scholarship alumni. Drawing on Dassin et al.'s (2018) framework for pathways to social change, the findings reveal that international education fosters social change in Kazakhstan in four ways. First, the scholarship program develops local talent and builds agents of change. Second, it widens access to international education, particularly for individuals from marginalized communities, who would otherwise lack access owing to their scarce financial resources. Third, the program develops alumni's cosmopolitan and intercultural competencies and strengthens international collaborations. Finally, it creates associations and groups through which alumni can collectively contribute to society. The findings highlight that while the interviewed alumni foster strong patriotic feelings and are determined to contribute to the prosperity of their country, underdeveloped industries, economic volatility, and top-down bureaucracy in workplaces limit their potential contributions to social changes. These findings may help policymakers and administrators to reconsider and improve on the design and structure of scholarship programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper examines students' views about the purpose of university education and its role in their future employability in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Data was gathered through focus groups with 172 undergraduate students. Findings suggest that due to socio-economic pressures, students largely see the purpose of university in terms of its economic value, namely enhanced access to employment opportunities and improved financial wellbeing. While future career prospects are key motivation to pursue a university degree, this study shows that the perceived role of university credentials in employability is declining. Due to an oversupply of graduates and limited employment opportunities, employers have raised the bar for qualifications to select job candidates. Coupled with an undergraduate degree perceived as an 'incomplete degree', students are driven to earn more educational credentials; leading to a greater supply of graduates and what appears to be a widespread occurrence of 'diploma disease'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University-industry research partnerships are crucial for promoting university entrepreneurship. Faculty as key instigators play a critical role in developing such partnerships. Previous studies demonstrate that faculty engagement depends on a diverse set of factors. Drawing on individual interviews with 76 faculty members from eight public and private universities in Kazakhstan, this study explores factors affecting faculty decisions to engage in industry research partnerships in a developing country. Applying the personal engagement theory, we found that despite perceiving industry partnerships as personally meaningful and being driven by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, faculty engagement in industry research partnerships in Kazakhstan is limited. The reasons for this are faculty members' feelings of low safety and availability caused by structural-, organisational- and individual-level barriers and challenges. We also found that some of these barriers and challenges can be more specific for developing countries that tend to have immature economies, suffer from corruption, have limited research capacity, and invest less in research activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines employers’ perspectives about university graduates’ skills and preparation for employment in post-Soviet Tajikistan. It explores the mismatch between the skills university graduates acquire and the skills required in the job market, and addresses some of the underlying reasons for the perceived skills mismatch. Thematic analysis of interviews with employers’ and secondary data suggest that the quality of higher education has declined considerably over the past two decades, widening the gap between the skills acquired by university graduates and those required by employers. The findings show that despite a rapid expansion of the higher education sector in Tajikistan, an increasing number of individuals are obtaining degrees, but fail to demonstrate a basic understanding of their field of study. I argue that while the skills mismatch derives from the challenges faced by the education system, a latent labor market and a weak economy are also contributing to the skills mismatch. The goals set by politicians and policy-makers, envisioning the internationalization of education and the preparation of the graduates to be responsive to the local and global labor market needs, seem far from being achieved in the near future. Employers’ perspectives suggest that the reform of the education sector without the creation of more decent job opportunities will likely exacerbate the current skills mismatch in Tajikistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Weak research capacity leads to university-industry partnerships that are limited to a 'Doing, Using, Interacting' model of innovation. • Poor development of human capital with limited resources result in weak university–industry partnerships that are not knowledge-intensive. • Top-down management, coupled with poor research and working environments for university faculty impede university-industry partnerships. This paper examines university–industry partnerships (UIPs) in Kazakhstan. The study described here explored the kinds of collaborations with industry that universities have undertaken, their purposes and benefits, and the contextual barriers to such partnerships. Our findings suggest that UIPs in Kazakhstan remain weak and are largely limited to employers' involvement in teaching, the provision of internships for students, and technical consultancies. We argue that the goal of policy makers to develop robust research partnerships that contribute to innovation and economic growth is constrained by heavy faculty teaching loads, poor institutional support for research, constant reforms in the higher education system, and little consistency in the priorities of the fast-changing Ministers of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]