For many years, Kazakhstan operated a corrupt “dissertation assembly line.” Later, dissertation councils were abolished and the country transitioned to a Western-style system for awarding academic degrees.
After that, candidates were required to demonstrate proficiency in English, have a foreign mentor, and publish in academic journals from the international Scopus database.
However, unfortunately, this did not lead to an improvement in the quality of social sciences and humanities research. In Kazakhstan, people learned how to circumvent these international requirements of the academic community.
Fake English proficiency certificates appeared, along with “negotiable” mentors from neighboring countries and publications in niche Scopus-listed journals obtained exclusively for payment, without proper peer review.
Sociologist and Candidate of Historical Sciences Yeset Yesengarayev discusses the situation with academic degrees in Kazakhstan on the TENGE TALKS channel.
