In the past few decades education has increasingly come to be seen as a precondition for economic success. Major educational policy documents in many countries are fuelled by a set of clichés about the role of education ‘to create a competitive national education system’, or ‘to foster innovation and create a productive basis for a modern, competitive economy’. The Europe 2020 strategy, adopted by European governments in 2010 is focused on human capital as a key component of economic development. Furthermore, in 2011, the World Bank released its Education Strategy 2020 entitled ‘Learning for all: Investing in people’s knowledge and skills to promote development’. The language of capital and investment is central here, being applied both to knowledge creation and innovation and to the development of skills.

 States are playing a key role now in actively adjusting their educational policies to encourage a high level of human resource development that, it is believed, will enable them to compete economically in an era of globalisation. Among post-Soviet countries, Kazakhstan is in the vanguard of investing in human capital, financed by oil revenue, with education being regarded as the central lever of economic growth. In the first decade of the new millennium the Government of Kazakhstan initiated a new programme of educational reform. It was designed to make education a more effective tool in developing human capital and improving competitiveness. The focus was on science, technology, and the provision of elite institutions for gifted and talented students – Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) and Nazarbayev University (NU). The rationale behind the emphasis on elite education was that today’s gifted pupils are tomorrow’s intellectual, social, and economic leaders, and that they will generate scientific discoveries and produce ideas which will contribute to the country’s economic growth. In addition, NIS and NU are expected to transfer successful experience and practices to the wider system of education in Kazakhstan.

This paper reports interim findings from a research project ‘Internationalisation and educational reform in Kazakhstan’, which involved partnership between the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education (UK), the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (USA) and Nazarbayev University Centre for Education Policy (Kazakhstan). This was designed to document key steps, policy decisions and actions directed at human capital development in Kazakhstan over the last twenty years. 

 The research questions were:

1. What are the main principles guiding the reforms in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools?
2. What set of knowledge and skills are NIS aiming to develop in their students?
3. What areas of curriculum development are being prioritised and how far do these contribute towards the development of human capital in the country?

The case of Kazakhstan is a unique one, and presents a significant research interest, not least because its approach to reform is based on ‘strategic partnerships’ with major international educational providers from all around the world. A critical policy analysis approach will be used to examine it in the international context of neoliberal globalisaton.

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