Results of the seminar on international academic cooperation

A seminar on international academic cooperation was held at the Kazakh-German University. The purpose of this event was to exchange experience and expertise between the universities of Almaty on the creation and maintenance of international partnerships through the implementation of academic mobility programs.
During the meeting, an exchange of experience took place on the implementation of successful international cooperation and academic mobility.
Murat Syzdykov spoke about the joint educational program of Satbayev University with the Colorado School of Mining. American colleagues, together with Kazakhstani teachers, have developed a course of lectures necessary for teaching in English. The main “customers” of this program are large oil companies, aimed at attracting successful graduates. The main problem facing the university is the lack of a sufficient number of qualified personnel and the lack of mobility of teaching staff.
Representative to Narxoz Universities Fariza Rakhimova shared her experience in organizing academic mobility at the university, and told how the strict selection process goes and the disciplines are transferred.

AUPET President Gita Rewalde spoke about the successful experience of international cooperation at the university, highlighting the advantages of cooperation with Latvia: there, students have the opportunity to obtain a BA of Engineering, while in Kazakhstan only a BA of Science is possible.

Katie Curiel, Globalization Adviser at Narxoz University, identified the main marketing strategies to increase the attractiveness of the university: it is necessary to spread information about the university as much as possible at all levels, including through personal contacts. Often, the lack of desire for cooperation is due to insufficient information about a potential partner.

The discussion revealed the problem of a vague understanding of the difference between double-degree and joint-degree, as well as the choice of disciplines within the framework of academic mobility (insufficient or excessive number of credits, discrepancy between the content of disciplines and the timing of exams).

As a result, the idea of regular meetings on certain topics (for example, once a semester) was proposed, as well as the idea of creating a consortium of Kazakhstani universities, where it would be possible to jointly attract partners by “advertising” each other.