SEDF is a non-profit organization with a special focus on program for narrowing the gap in the quality of education between urban and rural areas. Rural School educational program has been executed with the support of partners and sponsors and together with NIS since 2019. The program includes the introduction of high-quality teaching methods, teacher training, equipping schools with new equipment and classrooms for physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, engineering, robotics, libraries, etc.
“71% of schools in the country are village schools. We have created the SEDF for systematic work to ensure uniform access to quality education in rural areas. As part of our program, we support village schools by providing methods of the best educational institutions in the country, while fully equipping schools with new modification classrooms at the expense of private sponsorship funds. The program has been running since 2019, during this time we have equipped 70 classrooms in 5 village schools, about 300 teachers have completed trainings and master classes from the best trainers of the country. Funding of about 250 million KZT is required for one school,” said Daniyar Toktarbayev, the SEDF Director.
According to the project initiators, the program has successfully proved itself in 5 schools in 3 districts of the country. About 800 million KZT of private sponsorship funds were attracted. Thanks to this, 3,000 schoolchildren have access to quality education. Over the 3 years of the project implementation, the percentage of quality of education in these schools has significantly increased, schoolchildren have become more likely to participate and win prizes in international Olympiads, the level of teachers’ satisfaction with working conditions and confidence in their knowledge and skills have qualitatively increased. As a result, Kazakhstan Khalkyna Fund has supported the school modernization model developed by the FSDE. It was proposed to implement the project titled “Capacity building of hub schools in rural areas” together with NIS and provide methodological and material support to 17 schools in 17 regions of the country. The allocated funds will be used only for equipping new modification classrooms, which are donated directly to schools free of charge. The FSDE assumes operating expenses and costs for training programs and methodological support.
“Kazakhstan Khalkyna Fund strictly adheres to its principles in matters of project financing. Today’s memorandum was signed based on sound analysis of the initiatives and reporting of the programs implemented by the SEDF. When cooperating within the Rural School program, we saw an effective model and decided to provide support for its implementation in other areas. This initiative is of great social importance, it will help improve the level of education and life in rural areas,” reports Bolat Zhamishev, Chairman of the Board of Kazakhstan Khalkyna Fund.
“We have been working with the Fund and partners since 2019, during this time we have managed to implement a large project titled “Rural School Powered by NIS”. Within the program, we have comprehensively introduced the procedure for school management, strengthened the teaching technology and communication with the local community in 5 rural educational institutions,” said Kulyash Shamshidinova, Chairman of the Board of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Autonomous Educational Organization.
“Thanks to the support of Kazakhstan Halkyna Fund, the SEDF will be able to scale the project from 5 to 22 schools and implement transformations in new districts of the country. These are 17 hub educational institutions that will be improved according to strategic plan of the Fund. Our goal is to cover all 164 districts of the country by 2026. We are open for cooperation with strategic partners and sponsors. We adhere to the concept of sustainable development and principles of consistency and transparency in our work,” says Ksenia Verba, Cofounder of the SEDF.
The program is implemented with the support of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the National Academy of Education named after Y. Altynsarin.