The system of higher education in the region is represented by four universities and forms a vertical structure together with schools, technical and vocational education institutions, and additional education organizations.

Every year nearly four thousand young people graduate from universities in our region, which is enough to fill the main niches of the labour market. The unemployment rate in our region is less than five percent, which is quite low compared to other regions of Kazakhstan and countries of the Eurasian Economic Union.

However, soon we will have to face a number of new challenges.

Firstly, secondary education has to quickly move forward and its quality must correspond to the international position of our country and the region. Results of several surveys held among university staff show that school teachers in the region give good knowledge in their respective subjects. However, school-leavers from some schools have not been trained well enough to use their knowledge in practice.

Here it should be noted that higher education is facing the following problems: first of all, school-leavers are not prepared well enough in terms of information retrieval and independent work on the preparation of papers and projects. About 40 percent of first-year students ask for additional classes teaching these skills.

Secondly, the quality of language training at schools limits our abilities in terms of multilingual education. Students often show low levels of academic performance in foreign languages (the average score is from 60 to 80, which is a “C” or low “B” level). As a result, they cannot attend lectures delivered by foreign lecturers. Every year about 50 students have to take a summer semester to eliminate the academic backlog in foreign languages. Less than 10 percent of first-year students are ready to study courses in three languages and participate in the academic mobility program. The quality of the Kazakh language teaching in schools with the Russian language of tuition also raises some questions.

Thirdly, university lecturers talk about the lack of technical skills and competence in using information and communication technologies. Many school-leavers, especially from rural schools, do not know how to work with Excel spreadsheets or make a presentation using Power Point. About 30 percent of freshmen majoring in Biology do not have the skills of working with microscopes and microslides. Students majoring in Chemistry cannot work with reagents, do not know the names of chemical glassware, etc.

The second challenge arises because of the increasing openness and integration processes of our country. Our region's universities have to compete with other regions of Kazakhstan and other countries. Three of the four universities in the region are in the top-ten list nationwide in all major rankings. However, our positions in international rankings are considerably worse: we are in the second hundred of the CIS ranking and in the fourth thousand globally (according to Webometrics).

In this regard, Pavlodar region must continue to raise the quality of higher education. In many ways, this leads to the third challenge which consists in a negative migration balance. The best school-leavers often prefer to go to other regions of Kazakhstan, the Eurasian Economic Union and the world, and very few of them come back. It is easy to calculate that if more than KZT 200,000 is annually spent on one person during the four years in kindergarten and 11 years at school, the region loses $ 15,000 with every outgoing school-leaver.

The fourth challenge is related to the economic slowdown in the region, which may result in reduction of vacancies.

What do we offer in order to improve the quality of education?

Step 1. We want to deepen our cooperation with secondary schools of the region. The University holds an annual international research conference, Satpayev Readings, which brings together scientists and students from various educational institutions (including schools) of Kazakhstan and other countries. This conference has a great educational value for the younger generation, as it instills interest in various branches of knowledge through sharing and discussion of students’ research findings. Starting from this year, we will also add new special courses that will help students prepare for UNT and CTA. Our Science and Technology Park is working on a project in the field robotics with Nazarbayev Intellectual School and Kazakh-Turkish Lyceum. Zh. Aimauytov Center works with Lyceum 10. We have reached an agreement with Gymnasium 3, according to which our Department of Foreign Languages will work in close cooperation with them. All of our departments and centers are ready to cooperate with any interested educational institutions.

Step 2. In order to improve the quality of higher education, starting from the coming academic year, we intend to deepen internationalization and introduce special courses in Leadership, Acmeology, and Entrepreneurship. With this end in view, we have signed memoranda of understanding with the American University of Duke, Columbia, Colorado School of Mines, such European universities as Lund (Sweden), Brunel and Cambridge (UK), such Russian universities as Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, Gubkin Institute of Oil and Gas, and Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. Cooperation with these institutions implies inviting their lecturers to PSU and establishment of double-degree programs.

Development and implementation of new educational programs is carried out with the participation of partner-universities and companies of Pavlodar region involved in implementation of projects under SP IID-2.

Working in partnership with Lund University (Sweden) and Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), the University has developed 5 new educational subprograms within 2 Master's degree programs. PSU plans to open to new laboratories in metallurgy and petrochemistry. Students majoring in Metallurgy will have a new laboratory for computer simulation and testing of processes in metallurgy and metalworking. For the program in Petrochemicals, there will be a new laboratory of processes in oil processing and nanotechnology. Over KZT 400 million has been allocated from the state budget for acquisition of equipment for these new modern laboratories.

I believe that all this together will significantly improve our position in the education market, both in our region and nationwide.

Step 3. This year, higher education institutions of our region have received about 300 grants for school-leavers from labor-surplus regions of the country under the Serpin program. I believe that this will alleviate the problems of the forthcoming personnel deficiency in the labor market.

Step 4. Starting from this year, we have begun to focus more on second degree and Master's degree programs. This year, despite the overall decrease in the number of school-leavers, we have managed to achieve a 43-percent increase in the number of applications. The number of applications for second degree and Master's degree programs has nearly doubled compared to the last year's figures. Now we can work both with young school-leavers and experienced workers who want to improve their knowledge and skills.

As we approach the 1st of September, we would like to congratulate our region's teachers on the beginning of a new academic year. We are working together and we have a common goal, which is improving the quality of human capital. We are responsible for the competitiveness of labor resources of the Republic in general and our region in particular.