ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of higher education reforms in post-independence Kazakhstan to highlight the stages of the system’s transformation from a Soviet system to a new one. It outlines significant elements of the quality assurance system focusing on the influence of the Bologna Process. The Republic of Kazakhstan appeared on the international arena as an independent state at the end of 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union of which it was a member for more than seven decades. A public education system with universal access to free education at all levels was established and was common for all fifteen Soviet socialist republics. Political, economic and social transformations happening in Kazakhstan after independence led to large-scale reforms that significantly reshaped the higher education landscape. They are the marketisation of higher education and the implementation of the Bologna Process framework.
