Vicious circle

Yaroslav Razumov

Firstly, here are two positive examples.
When in 1870 German army defeated French army, quite unexpectedly for the world, analysts asked themselves a question – why? The author of the historical victory, chancellor of Prussia Bismarck replied that the war was won not by German soldier but by German teacher. Not only military reform but also reforms in systems including education, which was the base for the rest of success, brought Germany the victory.
The launch of the first artificial Earth satellite by the Soviet Union was totally bolt from the blue for USA. Carefully and religiously researching the reason of this soviet success the Americans came to the conclusion that primordially the soviet educational system is very effective and of high quality, and say, adopted some of its elements.
Now there is the antithesis. Also here are two examples.
Newspaper “Liter” (20.02.2008, article “Tender at the cost of life”) informs: in Zhambyl region oncological patients were left without vital treatment, as no expert of radiotherapy is found in this not so small region.
Several years ago, after another fragments fall of Russian rocket launched from Baykonur located near settlements in Kazakhstan, the Head of the President’s Administration of that time confessed that the country doesn’t have its own experts for impartially and exactly evaluating the level of pollution caused by rocket propellant.
We intentionally took two negative examples from our current era, torn apart in time, to emphasize once again that our non-professionalism and lack of quality are long-lasting tendencies. Actually there are endless similar examples at any field. Yesterday’s students can not read topographic maps after graduating from faculty of geography. A journalist suggests, in the article of competent edition published for business audience, to have a look at businessman’s fridge and examine its food exercise. The participants or witnesses of some stories describing the level of degradation of professionalism in our society talk about it like telling jokes and it would be funny, “when it was not so sad”.
The problem is not the reduction of level of “banal erudition” but in systematic degradation of professionalism in Kazakhstani society. Both “horizontally” meaning at various fields of economy, social life and culture, and “vertically” meaning all levels of the society. 
 
Dissipated capital
 According to the census in 1990, 90% of adult population of Kazakhstan had secondary and higher education. I think these figures were the highest when compared with the neighbor USS Republics or at least were one of the absolute leaders. And not only within the borders of   ex-Soviet Union. We should not forget this fact, analyzing the current state of educational field and level of professionalism: we should remember the starting point for coordination.  
For a long time during the times of independency the build up of non-professionalism was not so easily felt. The first strike here was caused by the mass flow out of population in the first half of 1990s. But firstly, the personnel reserve of the soviet era remained very solid and of high quality, secondly, the economic collapse of that time decreased the need of personnel in many fields of national economy; the quality process was shadowed by this fall of demand for professional personnel. It seemed at that time that the main problem on the way to economic reanimation was and would be the lack of investment and when the country had enough money everything “will start work”. Until the first half of the year 2000 nobody thought that some day personnel deficit will be the main obstacle for economic growth.   
Actually, it is not quite so. I remember the private conversation with Deputy Head of one of key ministries in approximately 1998. He himself broached the subject of approaching deficit of high level technical specialists. They can be “imported” he noticed but it will cost a lot. So the problem could be realized at some levels of our establishment. But either the level was not right to do something for it or the process of degradation of educational system or vocational training was faster than the opposite impulses.
I also remember once during the agitation campaign for parliament elections in 1990s the candidate was asked question about the quality of personnel in the field of economy. He agreed that there is a problem and a lot were lost but assured that everything can be filled-up: we have educational infrastructure, high number of specialists at every area, who can reproduce their experience. The man was absolutely right that the personnel collapse could be prevented and the conditions were right for it at that time. As it is obvious now, he was totally wrong in his optimistic prognosis.
All these were happening along with the talks about the need of diversifying the economy, quitting dependence on raw materials, and deepening the level of repartition in industry.  

Who has the worst “personnel diagnosis”?
 To be fair we need to say that today the problem in the quality of personnel is common in all big countries. Here are some private examples straight off. Several years ago Germany simplified the rules of getting residential permit for qualified programmers - theirs are not enough. Russia after beginning the modernization of energetic infrastructure realized that they have only left literally some numbers (!) of turbine planners and all of them not so young. China has deficit of good builders (they left the country to earn money). But our situation, as it seems to be, principally worse that others`.
Unlike the developed countries, like rich countries of EU or USA, we can not fill-up the personnel deficit by bringing in foreign resources. The social structure, people mentality, demographic situation and other facts do not let to solve the problem like China does. And the most important thing is that the system of education and science of Kazakhstan recently suffered such a loss that it stopped being the generator of new generation of specialists. And this is everywhere.
When preparing this article I met the specialists of various areas with hope to find a hook for optimism. I didn’t find.

Metalworking with geography
 What is geographical science for Kazakhstan? Too much. It is a prognosis of development of situation and solution for problems of hydroeconomic complex; the future of glaciers in the south of the country; consequences of climate change, for example, for agriculture. What is happening at this scientific area now? The member of the academy, former director of institute of geography of Sciences Academy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, one of the most popular experts in the field of glaciology, the glacier science, Igor Severski, noticed during our conversation:
-  After five, maximum ten years there will be nobody in Kazakhstan to talk about serious science; in the scientific area everything will have to be started from the very beginning. At the back of our generation of scientists is emptiness. The level of graduates from faculty of geography is crucially low, majority of which give the impression that they have just left the school. And in fact the scientist is not made during his time at the university; after it, person should go though long, lasting 25-30 years experience of work and study in the corresponding environment. This experience is implacable. And the environment is disappearing.  
We heard very similar opinions from geology scientists. They say that in the corresponding scientific institute average age of employees is over 60 years. Talking about young geologists, same as geographers, the majority of them have got their education without even once experiencing field practice, the scientists call it nonsense. “The culture of field practice was lost right after the collapse of USSR, there was no money for that, and when there was the educational system had no specialists who could conduct it” noticed one of our interlocutors. Does it worth reminding once again how important a developed geology science is for Kazakhstan whose economy depends on natural fossil mining?
Talking to the production we heard the same.  Head of one of the major food producers in the Republic started his description of the situation like this; finishing profile institutions people come here seeking job who does not know elementary math’s, not mentioning the technology. At the institutions the education is conducted referring to old, soviet methods and books which are nevertheless adapted to modern Kazakhstani frames but morally old. There are no laboratories in the needed level, no study equipments, no interrelation between study practice and production, no opportunities to develop scientific and technical work at factories and plants. There is no medium link in the production. There is the lowest worker level and top management, “soldiers” and “generals” no “officers”. They don’t come to us at a desired level from institutions, and they do not grow up from workers to medium level, because both workers and graduates have only beginning level low school education which makes it dead end. As a result production stability is always under the threat, - noticed the Head of the business.
The situation in the metal-working, other field of processing is not better. Pavel Beklemishev, General Director of “Belkamit” JV, one of the most successful enterprises of the country in this field, says:
- We get small number of specialists who had real and serious education. Even with the ones who formally have some kind of certificates of a degree we have to engage for a long time. Thereby, the length of work life of specialists at the production is very little, according to my calculations – only one of five. While we teach all five. This is additional loss of time and funds for us. According to the opinion of Mr. Beklemishev in the frame of 12 year education they should go by focus on to orientate most of the students to have secondary technical education. Otherwise, he fairly notices, “person will finish the school at the age of 18 already becoming an adult with corresponding needs but without a profession able to meet his needs”. It is good if the family can support him to have higher education or at least afford his leisure time. But what if the family can not afford it? According to the stability of social situation and needs of economy, people should learn some professional skills of professions like: welders, plasterers, bricklayers as early as during education at school. And this is a mission of the government.
It would seem who should be if not perfect but at least at a normal level are the specialists in the field of economy. Which field had more attention apart this one? But, as an example, famous economist Kanat Berentayev thinks different. He as the other popular people at other fields draws attention to the lack of or deficit in the practical work during the education at institutions, unequal study basis:
- Current books we have try to adopt western frames according to ours. But these western books do not take into account specific characters of market transition. And the market transition does not blend with any current theories. The resources studied at our institutions sometimes correspond to level of western colleges.
Related to this topic it recalls how in the beginning of year 2000 the Minister of economy of that time criticized our science of economy for disparity with modern objectives, being late on prognosis. At one of the business forums last autumn almost the same thing was said by Nurlan Smagulov, popular businessman, who rose the problem of the deficit of high quality analysis of economy.  As a result, there is “surplus of capacity and investments” in some areas and deficit in the other areas. It does not worth talking: with decently formulated economic study, “growing” from high grade education, the crisis like at the real estate market could be avoided. 
Almost all our interlocutors were critical about UNT (United National Testing), about the idea of “easy” promotions of “bolashakovs” to make themselves a career (“which means for the rest who are not so lucky, “social lift” will be “turned off” noticed Mr. Berentayev) We did not hear anything positive about any area of the reform including education and especially science, as well. 
Banal question - what to do? - does not have a simple answer here. Each of our interlocutors talked a lot about it. And the first and main conclusion that comes to mind after all these talks is: the reform in education and science has to be done with the wide participation of society, both at the stage of preliminary discussions and at organizational process and tracking its effectiveness. Otherwise everything will fall into vicious circle which we have followed for fifteen years.