Expert Group on Entrepreneurship Meeting

Meeting of the Expert Group on Entrepreneurship

On August 6, the Expert Group on Entrepreneurship meeting was held. The event wa.organized by Economic Research Institute in cooperation with the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The discussions were attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, National Chamber of Entrepreneurs "Atameken", Economic Research Institute, Kazakhstan Association of Continuing Education, Republican Association of Private Educational Organizations, Union of Industry Associations, Professional Education Organizations and members of the Expert Group on Entrepreneurship.

During the meeting, the main attention was paid to the issue of licensing preschool educationa.organizations;  and also - conducting state certification of educationa.organizations in the form of a permitting procedure.

Licensing of preschool educationa.organizations

At present, the attention of experts is focused on improving the quality of preschool education, in connection with which work is underway to transfer preschoo.organizations to a licensed type of activity.

Note that now these institutions operate on the basis of a notice of the beginning or termination activities. And, according to experts, this type of legal registration has its advantages.

The representative of the Association for Continuing Education Leila Kulenova expressed her position that the notification procedure allowed to develop market for the provision of services in the field of preschool education (up to 70% of the demand for these services is now covered by private preschool education institutions).  Moreover, with the notification procedure, as well as with licensing, the entire set of qualification requirements that the business entity must meet to start its activities is preserved.

According to experts, the introduction of licensing does not guarantee the high-quality performance of teaching staff duties at preschool educational structures, since even if the requirements for the qualifications of teachers are met, there are risks of their unfair work.

Thus, following the discussion of the first issue on the agenda, the experts came to the conclusion that licensing does not achieve the goal declared by the ministry - to ensure the availability of high-quality conditions for the upbringing and education of children in preschool educational institutions in accordance with the minimum qualification requirements that provide for compliance with legislation in the field of education.

To further improve the service quality, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan is recommended to ensure equal access for preschool education staff of all forms of ownership to advanced training courses, as well as assignment of the status of a teacher for private and public preschool educational institutions, which will significantly affect the improvement of services quality in this area.

Conducting state certification of educationa.organizations in the form of a licensing procedure

It should be noted that the state attestation of educationa.organizations in the form of a permitting procedure implies that two permits will be in force in the education system, the first of which was already mentioned above.

There are controversial opinions about the relevance of the second standard.  In particular, representatives of business communities are against the certification of educationa.organizations.

During the meeting, the representative of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan Galym Argyngazin expressed his position on the possibility of using other alternatives to the proposal through its comprehensive discussion by all interested parties.

Given the relevance of this issue, the members of the expert group are recommended to strengthen this work and develop an agreed position on the use of state regulatory instruments available to the education system (state control, permits, information tools).

For this, it is proposed to create a special Working Group under the MES RK with the participation of market entities, industry associations, social NGOs, other government bodies and independent experts.