# Bolashak

The Bolashak Programme (the Bolashak International Scholarship) is a scholarship which is awarded to high-performing students from Kazakhstan to study overseas all-expenses paid, provided that they return to Kazakhstan to work for at least five years after graduation.
Since its implementation in 1993, more than 10,000 students have been awarded the scholarship. Most of these students travel to study in the United States, but also elsewhere around the world.

## Description

The word "Bolashak" is translated into English as "Future". It was instituted by the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1993. Slate columnist Joshua Kucera writes that President Nazarbayev has "billed it as a way to inculcate Kazakhstan's youth with Western, democratic values." Kucera acknowledges in his article, however, that while they are sent overseas to learn new ideas and western values, they are often not given authority to implement positive changes.
Many Bolashak graduates hold main positions in state and private organizations within Kazakhstan.
According to an article in Zhas Alash, 10/25/1996, Kuanysh Satybaldievich Sazanov, a political economist, was recognized as the first Bolashak scholarship recipient. Mr. Sazanov finished his two year program in 18 months, and in a symbolic gesture, presented the first Bolashak diploma to Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
From 1994 through 2004, 785 students were granted the Bolashak scholarship. By 2017, 12,046 more scholarships had been granted, making a total of 12,831 scholarships by the year 2018.
In 2005, the total number of applicants who applied for the Bolashak program was recorded as 6,698. Compared to 2004, the amount of applicants increased by 45%. Moreover, this amount exceeded the yearly intake of major universities in Kazakhstan.
During the competition process of the year 2005, 537 applicant records were rejected due to nonconformity to the competition rules for awarding the Bolashak International Scholarship. The applicants, approved for conformity to the Rules of Selection, underwent language and psychological testing. Based upon results of the tests, they were recommended for consideration by the Experts Committee. As a result, in the year 2005, 1,796 applicants were awarded the Bolashak scholarship.
In 2006, the receipt of documents for participation at the selection process was conducted from April 26 through May 15, 2006 and from September 15 through October 31, 2006. During the first intake 809 files were received and 1,620 were received during the second intake. After language and psychological testing in the year 2006, 778 students were awarded the scholarship.
On April 20, 2007 by the decision of the Republican Committee for preparation of specialists abroad, the scholarship was granted to 82 applicants, on August 16 – to 185 applicants.
On January 24, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 223 candidates. On April 28, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 104 candidates. On August 13, 2008 the Bolashak Scholarship was awarded to 356 candidates.
Overall, as of 2009 5,950 students were awarded by a scholarship. Around 2,000 out of them were employed by the government and national companies. In 2009, 800 students returned to Kazakhstan.
In 2012, young people of Kazakhstan were granted the opportunity to study in 32 countries at 630 leading universities overseas.

## Ethnic distribution

According to last period statistics of 2008, 93.6% of candidates recommended for competition were of Kazakh ethnicity, followed by 3% of ethnic Russian, 0.9% ethnic Korean and 0.5% ethnic Tatar, basically due to essential criteria of the scholarship is the knowledge of the Kazakh language. On the other hand, the latest census conducted in 2021 showed the country's ethnic make-up to be 71% Kazakh, 14.9% Russian, 3.3% Uzbek and 1.9% Ukrainian, and that the Kazakh language is spoken by 80.1% of the population, primarily by the ethnic Kazakhs.

## List of universities

Universities for academic study in all specialties in 2023.
| Name | Country |
| Australian National University | Australia |
| Curtin University | Australia |
| Deakin University | Australia |
| Macquarie University | Australia |
| Monash University | Australia |
| Queensland University of Technology | Australia |
| University of Adelaide | Australia |
| University of Melbourne | Australia |
| University of New South Wales | Australia |
| University of Queensland | Australia |
| University of Sydney | Australia |
| University of Technology Sydney | Australia |
| University of Western Australia | Australia |
| University of Wollongong | Australia |
| University of Innsbruck | Austria |
| University of Vienna | Austria |
| Ghent University | Belgium |
| KU Leuven | Belgium |
| Universite libre de Bruxelles | Belgium |
| University of Antwerp | Belgium |
| Cardiff University | Great Britain |
| Durham University | Great Britain |
| Imperial College London | Great Britain |
| King's College London | Great Britain |
| Lancaster University | Great Britain |
| London School of Economics and Political Science | Great Britain |
| Newcastle University | Great Britain |
| Queen Mary University of London | Great Britain |
| University College London | Great Britain |
| University of Aberdeen | Great Britain |
| University of Bath | Great Britain |
| University of Birmingham | Great Britain |
| University of Bristol | Great Britain |
| University of Cambridge | Great Britain |
| University of East Anglia | Great Britain |
| University of Edinburgh | Great Britain |
| University of Exeter | Great Britain |
| University of Glasgow | Great Britain |
| University of Leeds | Great Britain |
| University of Liverpool | Great Britain |
| University of Manchester | Great Britain |
| University of Nottingham | Great Britain |
| University of Oxford | Great Britain |
| University of Reading | Great Britain |
| University of Sheffield | Great Britain |
| University of Southampton | Great Britain |
| University of Sussex | Great Britain |
| University of Warwick | Great Britain |
| University of York | Great Britain |
| Goethe University Frankfurt | Germany |
| Heidelberg University | Germany |
| Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | Germany |
| Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München | Germany |
| RWTH Aachen University | Germany |
| Technische Universität Berlin | Germany |
| Technical University of Munich | Germany |
| University of Bonn | Germany |
| University of Cologne | Germany |
| University of Erlangen-Nuremberg | Germany |
| University of Freiburg | Germany |
| University of Göttingen | Germany |
| University of Tübingen | Germany |
| University of Wuerzburg | Germany |
| Aarhus University | Denmark |
| Technical University of Denmark | Denmark |
| University of Copenhagen | Denmark |
| Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Israel |
| Tel Aviv University | Israel |
| University College Dublin | Ireland |
| Autonomous University of Barcelona | Spain |
| Complutense University of Madrid | Spain |
| University of Navarra | Spain |
| Sapienza University of Rome | Italy |
| Dalhousie University | Canada |
| McGill University | Canada |
| McMaster University | Canada |
| University of Alberta | Canada |
| University of British Columbia | Canada |
| University of Calgary | Canada |
| University of Ottawa | Canada |
| University of Toronto | Canada |
| University of Waterloo | Canada |
| Beijing Normal University | China |
| Fudan University | China |
| Harbin Institute of Technology | China |
| Nanjing University | China |
| Peking University | China |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | China |
| Sun Yat-sen University | China |
| Tsinghua University | China |
| University of Science and Technology of China | China |
| Zhejiang University | China |
| Chinese University of Hong Kong | Hongkong |
| City University of Hong Kong | Hongkong |
| Hong Kong Polytechnic University | Hongkong |
| Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | Hongkong |
| University of Hong Kong | Hongkong |
| Delft University of Technology | Netherlands |
| Erasmus University Rotterdam | Netherlands |
| Leiden University | Netherlands |
| Maastricht University | Netherlands |
| University of Amsterdam | Netherlands |
| University of Groningen | Netherlands |
| Utrecht University | Netherlands |
| Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Netherlands |
| Wageningen University & Research | Netherlands |
| University of Otago | New Zealand |
| University of Bergen | Norway |
| University of Oslo | Norway |
| Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia |
| Nanyang Technological University | Singapore |
| National University of Singapore | Singapore |
| Boston University | USA |
| Brown University | USA |
| California Institute of Technology | USA |
| Carnegie Mellon University | USA |
| Case Western Reserve University | USA |
| Columbia University | USA |
| Cornell University | USA |
| Duke University | USA |
| Emory University | USA |
| Florida State University | USA |
| George Mason University | USA |
| Georgetown University | USA |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | USA |
| Harvard University | USA |
| Indiana University Bloomington | USA |
| Johns Hopkins University | USA |
| Michigan State University | USA |
| New York University | USA |
| Northwestern University | USA |
| Ohio State University | USA |
| Pennsylvania State University | USA |
| Princeton University | USA |
| Purdue University | USA |
| Rice University | USA |
| Rutgers University–New Brunswick | USA |
| Stanford University | USA |
| Texas A&M University | USA |
| Tufts University | USA |
| University of Arizona | USA |
| University of California, Berkeley | USA |
| University of California, Davis | USA |
| University of California, Irvine | USA |
| University of California, Los Angeles | USA |
| University of California, San Diego | USA |
| University of California, Santa Barbara | USA |
| University of Chicago | USA |
| University of Colorado at Boulder | USA |
| University of Florida | USA |
| University of Illinois at Chicago | USA |
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | USA |
| University of Maryland, College Park | USA |
| University of Massachusetts Amherst | USA |
| University of Miami | USA |
| University of Michigan, Ann Arbor | USA |
| University of Minnesota, Twin Cities | USA |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | USA |
| University of Pennsylvania | USA |
| University of Pittsburgh | USA |
| University of Rochester | USA |
| University of South Florida | USA |
| University of Southern California | USA |
| University of Texas at Austin | USA |
| University of Utah | USA |
| University of Virginia | USA |
| University of Washington | USA |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison | USA |
| Vanderbilt University | USA |
| Washington University in St. Louis | USA |
| Yale University | USA |
| Dartmouth College | USA |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | USA |
| University of Helsinki | Finland |
| École Normale Supérieure de Lyon | France |
| Paris-Saclay University | France |
| PSL University | France |
| Sorbonne University | France |
| University of Paris | France |
| Charles University | Czech Republic |
| Swiss Federal Institute of Technology | Switzerland |
| University of Basel | Switzerland |
| University of Bern | Switzerland |
| University of Geneva | Switzerland |
| University of Lausanne | Switzerland |
| University of Zurich | Switzerland |
| Chalmers University of Technology | Sweden |
| Karolinska Institute | Sweden |
| KTH Royal Institute of Technology | Sweden |
| Lund University | Sweden |
| Stockholm University | Sweden |
| University of Gothenburg | Sweden |
| Uppsala University | Sweden |
| Hanyang University | Korea |
| Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology | Korea |
| Korea University | Korea |
| Kyung Hee University | Korea |
| Seoul National University | Korea |
| Sungkyunkwan University | Korea |
| Yonsei University | Korea |
| University of Cape Town | South Africa |
| Kyoto University | Japan |
| Nagoya University | Japan |
| Tohoku University | Japan |
| Tokyo Institute of Technology | Japan |
| University of Tokyo | Japan |
| Osaka University | Japan |
| Bauman Moscow State Technical University | Russia |
| Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology | Russia |
| National research nuclear University MEPHI | Russia |
| St Petersburg University | Russia |
| Higher school of Economics National Research University | Russia |
| German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer | Germany |
| University of St Andrews | Great Britain г. Сент-Андрус, Шотландия |
| Queen's University Belfast | Great Britain Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| University of Leicester | Great Britain |
| Universität Hamburg | Germany |
| Technische Universitat Dresden | Germany |
| Trinity College Dublin | Ireland |
| Universitat de Barcelona | Spain |
| University of Bologna | Italy |
| Université de Montréal | Canada |
| Western University | Canada |
| Eindhoven University of Technology | Netherlands |
| Radboud University in Nijmegen | Netherlands |
| University of Twente | Netherlands |
| The University of Auckland | New Zealand |
| ITMO University | Russia |
| National University Sciense and technology «MISIS» | Russia |
| Arizona State University | USA |
| University of Notre Dame | USA |
| Aalto University | Finland |
| Institut Polytechnique de Paris | France |
| Pohang University of Science and Technology | Korea |
| Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology | Korea |
| Hokkaido University | Japan |