June 27 at a briefing in the Government, Minister of Education and Science Askhat Aimagambetov spoke about the measures taken to provide social support to children from low-income families.

Aimagambetov informed that for the 2019-2020 academic year, the Government on behalf of the Head of State will additionally allocate 5 thousand grants for children from large families and recipients of targeted social assistance. These educational grants will be given to local executive bodies through a general transfer. Grants will be allocated from Sep. 1, 2019. The main condition is that applicants must have passed the Unified National Test and scored for national universities — at least 65 points, for pedagogical sciences — at least 60 points, and for other universities — at least 50 points.

Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis according to the results of the National Test.

Akims of the regions, cities of republican significance and the capital will create Competition Commissions. At the same time, the list of training areas for which grants will be allocated is determined by local executive bodies independently, taking into account the needs of the region in personnel with higher education. For holders of educational grants a scholarship of 20,949 tenge is provided. Lists of educational grant holders of the local executive bodies will be published in local media.

Aimagambetov informed that first there will be the general distribution of grants. In 2019, 53,700 grants will be awarded. Approximately Aug. 1, the names of the grant holders will be known. After that, those who have not received grants, but belong to socially vulnerable categories of citizens, can submit their applications. Applications for the competition for the award of additional educational grants will be accepted from Aug. 5 to Aug. 10. They will be awarded until Aug. 25.

“The categories of citizens have been identified, there is a threshold, now it depends on what points have been gained in certain areas of training, that is, there will be a ranking. And there are no corruption risks here,” the minister concluded.