Aida Sagintayeva - Ph.D. in Philology, Executive Director, Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (Republic of Kazakhstan). E-mail: asagintayeva@nu.edu.kz

Adil Ashirbekov - Master of Humanities, Junior Researcher, Department of Science of Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education (Republic of Kazakhstan). E-mail: aashirbekov@nu.edu.kz

Address: 53 Kabanbay batyra pr., 010000, Astana, Republic of Kazakhstan.

Bolashak Kazakhstan International Presidential Scholarship was introduced to provide citizens with access to advanced knowledge in newly emerging fields when economy was being restructured and manufacturing industries were being pushed out by innovational ones. The Bolashak Project was launched in 1994 and involved 6,282 people by 2013. The initiative-related experience is analyzed based on the documents regulating participation in the program and on a survey among administrators, scholars and graduates conducted by the Graduate School of Education of Nazarbayev University between 2011 and 2013. Throughout the twenty years of existence, the program has enhanced its effects in the following aspects: providing equal access to participation in the program for all citizens of the country; identifying the priority areas for degree programs; developing the list of foreign higher educational institutions to provide an opportunity for learning abroad; determining the levels of education that need financing under the program; creating conditions to make scholars of the program return to the Republic of Kazakhstan.