SEVENTH. Human capital is the basis of modernisation.

A new quality of education.

It is necessary to accelerate the creation of our own advanced education system, covering citizens of all ages.

The key priority of educational programmes should be the development of the skills which allow students to constantly adapt to changes and assimilate new knowledge.

Preschool education should, by September 1, 2019, have uniform standards for early childhood development and provide enhanced social and self-learning skills.

In secondary education, we have launched a transition to updated content and will complete it in 2021.

It includes completely new curricula, textbooks, standards and human resources.

It is necessary to further examine approaches to training and raising the qualifications of teachers.

At the higher education institutions across the country, it is necessary to develop pedagogical departments and schools.

It is necessary to strengthen the quality of teaching mathematical and natural sciences at all levels of education.

This is an important condition for preparing young people for a new technological order.

To increase competition between educational institutions and attract private capital, per capita financing in urban schools will be introduced.

It is necessary to reduce our students’ academic load taking into account that it is the highest among the CIS countries and on average by more than a third higher than in the OECD countries.

In all regions, it is necessary to set up a network of children’s tech parks and business incubators on the premises of schoolchildren’s centres, with all the necessary infrastructure, including computers, laboratories, and 3D printers.

This will help successfully integrate the younger generation into the research and industrial and technological environment.

The future of the people of Kazakhstan lies in the fluent use of Kazakh, Russian and English languages.

A new methodology for studying the Kazakh language at Russian-language schools has been developed and is being implemented.

If we want the Kazakh language to live in the centuries, it is necessary to modernise it, without loading it with excessive terminology.

In recent years, however, 7,000 well-established and globally accepted terms have been translated into the Kazakh language.

Such "innovations” sometimes go to ridiculous lengths.

Among them are "ғаламтор” ("Internet”), "қолтырауын” ("crocodile”), "күй сандық” ("piano”) and there are many other examples.

It is necessary to revise the approaches to the validity of such translations and to bring our language terminologically closer to the international level.

The transition to the Latin alphabet will help to resolve this issue.

A clear timetable for the transition to the Latin alphabet up to 2025 should be established at all levels of education.

Knowledge of the Russian language remains important.

Since 2016, in updated curricula, Russian is taught in Kazakh-language schools already from the first grade.

The transition to teaching certain natural science disciplines in English in the tenth and eleventh grades will start in 2019.

As a result, all our graduates will master three languages ​​at the level necessary for life and work in the country and in the global world.

Then a genuine civil society will emerge.

A person of any ethnic group will be able to choose any kind of work, up to the extent of getting elected as the President of the country.

The people of Kazakhstan will become one nation.

The content of training should be harmoniously complemented by modern technical support.

It is important to continue work on developing digital educational resources, connecting to broadband Internet and equipping our schools with video facilities.

It is necessary to update the training programmes in technical and vocational education with the involvement of employers and taking into account international requirements and digital skills.

It is necessary to continue the implementation of the "Free Vocational Education for All” project.

The State gives the young person the first profession.

The government must fulfil this task.

Video lessons and video lectures from best teachers of secondary schools, colleges and universities should be posted online.

This will allow all people of Kazakhstan, including those living in remote areas, to gain access to the best knowledge and competencies.

In higher education, it is necessary to increase the number of graduates trained in information technology, artificial intelligence and "big data”.

In addition, it is necessary to develop university science with a priority placed on research in metallurgy, oil and gas chemistry, agro-industrial complex, bio- and IT technologies.

It is necessary to implement a phased transition of applied scientific research in English.

Higher education institutions need to actively implement joint projects with leading foreign universities and research centres, large enterprises and multinational corporations.

Co-financing from the private sector should become a mandatory requirement for all applied research projects.

We need to marshal a consistent policy to support our young scientists by allocating quotas within the framework of scientific grants.

It is time to treat education as a separate branch of the economy with its investment projects and export potential.

It is necessary to legislatively consolidate academic freedom of universities by giving them more rights to develop educational programmes.

It is necessary to strengthen the retraining of teachers, to attract foreign managers to universities, and to open campuses of world universities.

The building up of the nation’s potential requires further development of our culture and ideology.

This is precisely the purpose of the Rukhani Zhanghyru programme.

Our society’s role model should be a citizen of Kazakhstan who knows his or her history, language, culture but who is also modern, fluent in foreign languages and has progressive and global worldview.

First class healthcare and a healthy nation.

With an increase in the life expectancy of our people and the development of medical technologies, the volume of consumption of medical services will grow.

Modern health care should focus more on disease prevention rather than on expensive hospital treatment.

It is necessary to strengthen public health management by promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Particular attention should be paid to protection and strengthening of the reproductive health of young people.

It is necessary to transition from an ineffective and costly for the state medical examination to managing major chronic diseases with the application of remote diagnostics, as well as outpatient treatment.

This approach has long been practiced in the world.

It is necessary to implement it boldly and actively.

It is necessary to adopt a comprehensive plan to combat cancer, to establish a scientific oncological centre.

Highly effective early diagnosis and treatment of cancer should be provided on the basis of international best practices.

It is necessary to carry out the same work that we conducted in cardiology, tuberculosis control and obstetrics.

Public health will gradually transition to the system of compulsory social health insurance based on the joint responsibility of the population, the State and employers.

The need for its implementation is beyond doubt.

However, a more thorough preparatory work is required, which has not been carried out by the Ministry of Healthcare and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection.

It is necessary to develop a new model of the guaranteed scope of free medical care by defining clear boundaries of state obligations.

People will be able to receive services not guaranteed by the state by becoming a member of the system of compulsory social health insurance or through voluntary medical insurance as well as co-payment.

It is necessary to increase the availability and effectiveness of healthcare services through the integration of information systems, the use of mobile digital applications, the introduction of electronic health passports, and the transition to "paperless” hospitals.

It is necessary to introduce genetic testing and artificial intelligence in medicine which will significantly improve the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment.

An important issue is the availability and quality of healthcare personnel training.

An integrated university medical centre is now operating at the unique Nazarbayev University School of Medicine.

This approach should be emulated across all medical schools.

To implement these and other measures, a new edition of the Code on Public Health and Health Care System should be developed.