Giving back to one’s country following a government scholarship: comparing in-country and expatriate graduates contribution to socio-economic development in Kazakhstan

Faculty Development Competitive Research Grants 2020-2022

This study seeks to examine how graduates of two Kazakhstani government scholarship programmes view their contribution to their country’s socio-economic development. The study will compare Bolashak scholarship alumni who have studied abroad and alumni of Nazarbayev University scholarship who studied at this university in their home country. The study also aims to explore those factors that support and hinder government scholarship recipients’ contributions to the development of their country.
The following research questions will guide this study:
(1) How do Bolashak and Nazarbayev University scholarship alumni perceive their contribution to their home country socio-economic development?
(2) In what ways alumni views differ between those who studied through government scholarships in Kazakhstan, and those who studied abroad in terms of how they perceive their contributions to home country development?
(3) What contextual factors and programme characteristics support or impede alumni contributions to national and socio-economic development?
Research for this project will draw on participants from two large scale governmental scholarship programmes in Kazakhstan. These include alumni from the Bolashak programme that enables Kazakshtani students to pursue a university degree at a reputable university abroad where English is the language of instruction, and alumni from Nazarbayaev University scholarship programme, offered to Kazakhstani students to study at this specific university.