Executive Education
LKY School’s growing presence in Central Asia by Aigerim (Aika) Bolat
Mr. Amantai Kurenbekov, Vice Minister of Internal Affairs, Alumni of Executive Programme for Senior Government Officials of Kazakhstan.
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ingapore and Kazakhstan may not have many similarities in terms of climate, food and culture, especially in the middle of December, when it is minus 30 degrees in the Kazakh capital of Astana. However this did not stop LKY School’s faculty from actively training and educating the young leaders and policy makers of the Kazakh Government throughout 2011. LKY School’s Executive Vice-Dean Mr. Stavros Yiannouka visited Astana in December 2011 to meet with the growing number of alumni from Kazakhstan, which now stands at 200. The gathering took place at the Radisson hotel in Astana where 45 alumni attended the event despite their busy year-end reporting period at various ministries and state agencies. Adding to their busy schedules were the vast preparations underway to celebrate the 20th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union on December 16 as well as parliament elections which took place on January 15, 2012. At the opening ceremony of the gathering Mr. Yiannouka stated that the LKY School was proud of the achievements of its alumni in Kazakhstan. Moreover, the presence of so many alumni at the gathering was testament both to the heartening goodwill that the Kazakh alumni feel towards the LKY School and the bonds forged among themselves. Some of the alumni of LKY School from Kazakhstan hold senior positions in government, starting from the top with the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet. They had attended a special two-day Public Policy and Management executive program, specifically designed to meet the needs of senior officials in March 2011 52 · Jan–Mar 2012 ·
and held at the new international Nazarbayev University in Astana. LKY School is helping to set up a worldclass Graduate School of Public Policy under the Nazarbayev University, which was established in 2010. This long-term commitment between the two universities is the fruit of the past five years’ cooperation in education between the two countries. At a meeting with the international partners of the Nazarbayev University on December 12, 2011, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov said that it is not just a partnership among the world’s leading universities but a friendship and a strategic collaboration which is important in connecting minds and developing relations between the countries. The international partners of Nazarbayev University are some of the top educational institutes from Asia, USA, Europe and the UK. In addition to the LKY School, the partners include Harvard Medical International Inc., Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, University College London, Carnegie Mellon and iCarnegie, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Pennsylvania. In his closing remarks, Mr. Yiannouka said that the LKY School looked forward to a long and mutually beneficial partnership with Nazarbayev University and appealed to the alumni for their support for the new Graduate School of Public Policy of the Nazarbayev University.
Mr. Zhomart Abiyessov, Chairman of Public Private Partnership Centre, Ministry of Economic Development & Trade and 2007/2008 MPM Alumni of LKY School.
Aigerim (Aika) Bolat is an Assistant Manager at Executive Education. Her email sppaika@ nus.edu.sg
Dr. Shigeo Katsu, President of Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan.