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Many countries offer government scholarships for international higher education and expect the recipients to contribute to national development. While there are many benefits from these scholarship programmes, they have been criticized as expensive. We examine the perceived contribution of Kazakhstan's two government scholarship alumni to the development of the nation. Drawing on Kirkpatrick's model of evaluation, we explore the influence of government scholarships on Bolashak and Nazarbayev University alumni and their contribution at organizational and societal levels. Our findings show that both groups of alumni play important roles in developing local talent and contributing to the improvement of systems, practices, and policies within their workplaces and to wider socio-economic changes. Alumni are fostering social developments bringing attention to issues of environmental protection and political engagement. However, our findings also illustrate that underdeveloped industries, limited job opportunities in some fields, low salaries, bureaucratic management culture, and resistance to change limit alumni contributions. We argue that the problem is at the system level and that the national economy is lagging in human capital development. Our findings emphasize the critical importance of developing the economy in tandem with education and human capital development to reap greater benefits from the knowledge of international education graduates.

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.

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]

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]