Contemporary education research predominantly applies data-driven epistemologies, standardised indicators, widely accepted ranks and instrumental policy demands, margining ethical judgment, moral responsibility, and questions of value. These clashes are further intensified under conditions of contemporary poly-crisis and AI development, where higher education is simultaneously expected to produce knowledge, serve the public good, and respond to political and economic pressures. In this context, education research faces newly emerged questions about how knowledge is produced, legitimised, and translated into action. 

This paper proceeds debates on knowing and acting by centring locally grounded ethical formation as a foundational yet under-theorised dimension of higher education. Drawing on Madhok (2020), who argued that “there are not enough concepts to capture and produce theorized accounts of different, historically specific and located forms of worldmaking in ‘most of the world” (p. 395), this paper develops the concept of Tolyq Adam (the holistic person), articulated by the Kazakh philosopher and poet Abai Kunanbayev (1845–1904), as a theory-capable educational philosophy emerging from Kazakhstan, Central Asia.

Abai’s philosophy conceptualizes human development through the integration interrelated concepts such as aqyl (reason), jürek (heart), and qayrat (will). This paper interprets these concepts as mutually constitutive dimensions of ethical formation, linking epistemic judgment, value orientation, and responsible action. In doing so, Tolyq Adam offers an alternative to fragmented, performative, and competence-driven models of higher education by foregrounding education as a process of ethical self-formation.

Since 2023, this philosophy has been systematically operationalised at Almaty Management University (AlmaU) through the Tolyq Adam program developed within the School of Transformative Humanities and Education. The initiative integrates humanistic pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, and service learning into a comprehensive general education framework designed in response to post-pandemic challenges related to student wellbeing, identity, and meaning-making (Aubakir, 2025).

At the core of the program lies the LEADER framework, which articulates six interrelated capacities for contemporary higher education: lifelong learning, empathy, analytical and creative thinking, dialogue and discourse, ethics and ecology, and resilience. These principles are embedded across eight compulsory general education courses reaching over 1,000 first-year students annually. In this sense, the Tolyq Adam program operates not merely as a curricular innovation but as an institutional epistemic design that redefines the purpose of general education. Survey data conducted by the institute from 2024–2025 indicate substantial student-reported growth across these dimensions, alongside the implementation of more than 100 student-led community projects translating ethical reflection into social action.

Recent research has begun translating Abai’s ethical categories into pedagogical models for civic and historical education, indicating the practical viability of Tolyq Adam and related concepts while underscoring the need for further philosophical clarification (Raissov & Zhylkyshybayeva, 2025). Therefore, we propose to position Tolyq Adam philosophically as an intervention in the politics of knowledge production, rather than merely as a culturally specific pedagogical model. This intervention also challenges the marginalisation of non-Western concepts in education research and demonstrates their analytical value for theorising education’s role in crisis-responsive yet academically autonomous contexts. 

The paper employs conceptual analysis and framework synthesis within traditions of educational philosophy. First, it explicates the concept of Tolyq Adam, defining and clarifying its conceptual boundaries and epistemological assumptions while addressing risks of mistranslation and avoiding its reduction to vague or universalised notions of “holism ” (Kerimbayeva et al., 2020). Second, the analysis derives three analytically distinct yet interrelated dimensions of ethical formation: epistemic (aqyl), affective (jürek), and volitional (qayrat). In doing so, these dimensions are synthesised into a conceptual framework that links ethical formation to pedagogical orientations emphasising reflexivity, moral judgment, and the translation of knowledge and values into action. Throughout, concepts are treated as generative tools for theorising educational purposes and practices, rather than as descriptive or culturally bounded categories.

This conceptual paper argues that Abai’s Tolyq Adam (Holistic Person) offers a locally grounded philosophy of ethical formation for higher education, centred on the disciplined integration of aqyl (epistemic judgment), jürek (moral-affective attunement), and qayrat (volitional commitment). By clarifying Tolyq Adam’s conceptual frameworks and resisting its translation into just generic “holism,” the paper contributes a more precise vocabulary for theorising ethics as formation rather than compliance. The concept of Tolyq Adam emphasize that ethical life is learned in practice: through dialogue, self-scrutiny, and commitments tested in shared problems and positions education as moral growth through reflective experience. The framework invites curricular and pedagogical designs in Higher education that cultivate judgment, care, and agency together, and that treat student projects and service learning not as add-ons but as sites where values are rehearsed and made consequential. Conceptually, the paper shows how indigenous intellectual traditions, particularly from Kazakhstan, can function as theory-generating resources, not only cultural illustrations. Empirically, it calls for the need for careful evaluation of how formation is enacted, including the validity of survey instruments, the meanings students attach to “growth,” and how educators interpret them. Future research could trace how aqyl, jürek, and qayrat are fostered across disciplines and institutional contexts over time and beyond Kazakhstan.

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